Moonlight, Motorbikes, and a Brotherly Bond
by NYDragonRose
Summary: Chaptered Marauder tale, semi-sequel to my one-shot, set in their sixth year. Long beginning but gets better. Sirius leaves home, Peter has a possessive girlfriend, James continues his pursuit of Lily, no one know what's wrong with Lupin. A slice of life.
1. Ring Leaders

**Well, Hello! Welcome to my first chaptered Harry Potter Tale, about everyone's favorite magical lovable rogues, the Marauders! They are the main characters. Their might be a bit of a leaning/focus on Lupin, because he's my favorite, and admittedly there's much less about Peter, because he's my least favorite. I sincerely hope no one cares too much about that. So, it's a tale of friendship, just friendship of four boys who love each other like brothers and hang out with girls anyways. Rated K+, just to be cautious**. **Humor, angst, adventure, heartwarmingness all (hopefully) present. Played from the Marauders' Perspective, so Snape's a villain, pretty much, as are most Slytherins. Lily is involves, Quidditch is involved. I have already written the first four chapters before publishing this first one, because waiting is really annoying and I don't want to torture people if I get lazy and fall behind. Lots of fluff and exposition, but eventually develops a bit of a plot. And this introduction was ridiculously long, wasn't it? Sorry about that! Just give this tale a chance! I hope you enjoy it so much you leave me glowing reviews, or favorites, or at least tell me what I could do better about it. Enjoy!**

"'Night, Jim!"

"'Night, Dad!" called James Potter as his father retreated into his bedroom to sleep. He was the only person in the world who called him 'Jim'. Even James's mother never said it – she would use his proper name, or sometimes call him 'son'. And his friends at school all called him 'Prongs'.

A smile lit on James's face at the thought – it was the night of the thirty-first of August; tomorrow he would be headed back to Hogwarts for his sixth year, and he would see them all again on the train and at the feast.

His best friend Sirius had written to him a lot over the summer; life seemed to be going from bad to worse at the Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, home of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, whose first rule was that of blood purity. Sirius could hardly wait to go back to school and escape his prejudiced relatives, who refused to forgive him for being Sorted into Gryffindor, associating with Muggle-borns, blood traitors, and werewolves, "disgracing the family name" with his antics, and his aspiration to join the Order of the Phoenix instead of the Death Eaters.

James was devoutly glad his own family was not so ridiculous. He oftentimes felt like the most fortunate among his four friends: Sirius had his family drama; Remus, his poverty and lycanthropy; and Peter, his general lack of skill or charm. James's family was rich but kind, and he could succeed in everything from Transfiguration to Quidditch effortlessly; he'd even been named the Captain for this year, along with receiving his rather brilliant OWL scores. He grinned as he ran his hand along his sleek Silver Arrow, his mind already abuzz with strategies with which to win the Quidditch cup yet again. The only thing he wanted that he still had not achieved was the love of a girl named Lily Evans. He would see her tomorrow, too! Life was good.

And then there was a knock at the door. James sat up abruptly, his broomstick clattering to the floor beside the couch. Who on earth would be calling at this hour? He stood, barefoot and pajama-clad, crept to the door, and opened it.

Sirius Black was standing in the doorway, pale-faced and silent, breathing heavily, with a trunk and a guitar case at his feet. "James," he said finally. "Hello."

"Sirius," said James, eying his friend's pallid and anxious countenance. "Are you – what are you – do you want to . . . umm, come in."

Sirius obliged and heaved his luggage through the door and over to the couch. He was clad in black leather and biker boots. He sat gloomily down on the couch. "Are you OK, Sirius? Do you need – anything?"

Sirius looked up at him. "Can I stay here?" he asked, "and go to the train station with you – with your family tomorrow?"

"Of course," replied James immediately, going to the kitchen. "What happened? Did they kick you out?"

"No," Sirius replied in would-be casual tone, "I – I left. And I can't go back, nor would I want to. Mum has probably already blasted me out of the family tree," he added with a grim smile.

James stared incredulously at his friend. "Tough crowd," he commented lightly. "Tea?"

Sirius shrugged. "Anything stronger?"

"Just butterbeer," James replied.

"Works for me," replied Sirius as James fetched the bottle and two cups. Then he added, awkwardly, "Thanks, James. For everything."

"Don't be so bloody formal, Padfoot," James grinned as he poured them each a bubbly glass of butterbeer, by way of "you're welcome." Sirius grinned back and they toasted their return to Hogwarts school and the new adventures the Marauders would have this year.

"So," said James, after he had quaffed his entire glass in one gulp, trying to put his friend's mind on lighter, happier matters, "have you thought at all about our opening trick? It's a crying shame Bertha Jorkins left last year; she was so easy to warm up on . . ."

"Try something on Wormy's girlfriend," Sirius suggested, "that Hufflepuff chick – you know, just so she knows what she's in for if she hangs around us. That is if they're still together by the time we get to school . . ."

"But won't you feel like a jerk if she ditches him over that?" James asked in mock sympathy.

"Not a bit," Sirius replied with a twisted smile as he sipped his butterbeer.

"Me neither," said James. "So that's settled." He sat back on his chair and yawned contentedly.

"That's good," said Sirius lightly. "Any genius plans for winning Evans this year?"

"Padfoot," James responded in mock conceit, "I'm the _Quidditch Captain_. She doesn't stand a chance."

"Yes, because Quidditch worked so well to win her over the last four years," Sirius told him sarcastically. "The only time she even _smiled _at you was when she saw you being nice to Moony after the full moon."

"Wrong, Padfoot!" James replied. "Even she has her Gryffindor pride. She cheers me on at every game. I saw her smiling at me in the front row one time –"

"And then a Bludger hit you in the face," Sirius interjected. "And she _laughed_."

James frowned. "Yes, well . . . I'm glad that Beater graduated . . . this year I'll get better ones. I just really hope there's some genuine Keeper talent this year – I mean, Quirke and Longbottom were good, but after they left - for the last few years . . . I dunno, it's like they can't even _see_ the Quaffle."

"Which is a great load of angst you could save for your teammates, who might have the slightest possibility of caring," said Sirius harshly and he downed the rest of his glass of butterbeer.

"I keep saying you should do Quidditch!" James insisted. "You're a pretty good flier; you could definitely defend the goals better than the last few Keepers we've had."

"Prongs, if it gets to the point where I'm the best Keeper in the whole house of Gryffindor, I'm going to jump in the lake and let the Giant Squid eat me. And you will, too, because Evans will never cheer on a team like that. And then Moony will get all lonely and depressed with only Wormtail for company, and he'll jump in too," Sirius said, wildly spinning the tale further, "and then Wormtail last, and then Lily will because she'll feel horrible and responsible for it, then Snape will, because Evans did, and then . . . well, you get the picture. Mass suicide. So make sure you find a better Keeper!"

"And then I suppose the school would have to close, and everyone would be stupid sheep, so Voldemort would take over the world," James added in conclusion. "If ever anyone doubted the importance of Quidditch . . ." He yawned and stood to put the butterbeer away as the hall clock rang to signal the hour. "Look, it's late, and we want to be prepared for our first day back at Hogwarts. We should sleep." And with a wave of his wand, two sleeping bags flew out of the hall closet and onto the twin couches in the living room; not long ago, he had performed a series of complicated procedures that got rid of the Trace that still bound him – he could not have his age restricting his freedom any more than anything else.

But Sirius was giving James an incredulous expression. "Prongs, you sound like Moony," he said. "We can sleep on the train if we have to, idiot!"

"Funny, whenever Moony talks like that, you tell him he sounds like McGonagall," James mused with a sigh as he settled onto one of the couches. "Ah, poor Moony. I saw the last full moon a while back and thought of him . . . his transformations in the summer must be miserable . . ."

"Yes, keep thinking like that, James. That's the attitude that wins you Lily's smile," Sirius yawned.

"What – being nice to Moony?" James asked as he fumbled with the sleeping bag's zippers. "Yes, it's much more effective than Quidditch," Sirius concluded.

"Maybe I ought to try and find him a girl, then . . ." said James sleepily as he opened the sleeping bag to climb inside. "Goodnight, Padfoot!"

Sirius stripped of his coat and biker boots and stood considering for a moment. Then, very awkwardly, he walked to James and hugged him, trying to convey all his appreciation in one clumsy gesture. James hugged back, but then, to diffuse all awkwardness, they pretended it never happened. They both climbed into their respective sleeping bags, settled into comfortable positions. "Goodnight, Prongs!"

The two best friends were not silent long, thought they intended to leave it there for that night; by time James finally drifted off first, it was four in the morning, and almost nothing had been left un-discussed. Sirius had told in more detail of his flight from home and the reasons for it; they had blabbered on about Quidditch and new pranks and their friends and how James was sure to win Lily this year. By the time they were both asleep, they had a firmly-established list of goals for the year:

-Win Lily Evans

-Win the Quidditch cup

-Acquire a Flying Motorcycle

-Prank Wormtail's Hufflepuff girlfriend

-Get Moony a date

-Stay together and remain coolest, most adventurous wizard gang on campus

Little did the two dark-haired sleepers know, as they dreamt happily of zooming Snitches, zooming motorcycles, swishing red hair, and dark, cold nights under the bright full moon, that with the greatest adventures or any gang, they would also have to face the greatest adversities . . .


	2. Scarlet and Steam

**Hiya, welcome to chapter two! I commend you for keeping with this story - it makes me feel good! Anyways, we meet the other two Marauders in this chapter - my favorite and my least favorite. And, in case you were wondering, no, I don't own Harry Potter; I own books and movies and quidditch googles and a clue game and various other paraphernalia, but not anything about the story - that's still in the hands of good ol' JK, where it rightfully belongs. I hope you enjoy this chapter! Please, please, please, review!**

James's parents were rather surprised, but not overly dismayed, when they discovered the second sixteen-year-old boy sleeping in their living room on the couch opposite his best friend. They gave him breakfast of toast and eggs, remarked about the rate of his growth, and brought him along to the train station by side-along apparition under James's invisibility cloak.

Soon, equipped with trolleys for their luggage, James's sporting an owl cage containing his tawny, he and Sirius were leaning inconspicuously onto the ticket barrier between platforms nine and ten, and then promptly vanishing through it into a world of scarlet and steam. James's smiling, adaptable parents followed them through to say their final goodbyes before their son left for another year of near-perpetual separation.

It was earlier than most of the students arrived, so they did not have many to move through as they made their way to the entrances to the train. Sirius stood awkwardly a short distance away whilst his friend was hugged and kissed repeatedly and spoken to earnestly by his parents. He found it hard to watch, somehow, thinking of his own parents, and determined to look away and scan the sparse crowd for anyone else he knew – any sign of Lily Evans's signature brilliant scarlet locks, Remus Lupin's telltale pallor and patches, Peter Pettigrew's stocky frame and pointy nose, perhaps wishing his sisters farewell . . .

And then James's mother came up and hugged him as well. "Have a good term, Sirius," she told him kindly, "but try not to get James into _too _much trouble, if you can help it."

"Come visit at Christmas," added James's father as he waved goodbye and finally departed with his wife, leaving his son to find his other friends. Sirius said nothing but stared rather sullenly after them. James was at his side, contradicting his friend's moodiness and grinning from ear to ear.

"Come on," he told Sirius cheerfully, taking his arm and dragging him along, "let's find a good spot so we won't have to share a compartment with some Slytherin, like last year . . ."

"I think Wormy found her rather attractive, actually," Sirius said with a knowing grin, "so it was worth it to watch him . . ."

"Excuses, excuses," dismissed James as they boarded the train and moved into single-file to slip into the aisle. "You just want to justify spending all that time hitting on Wormy's Ravenclaw sister before we could get on the train, and it was raining, and Moony was ill, and Evans rolled her eyes at us, and Peter thought it was awkward, and Caroline Pettigrew has nothing on Lily or Alice or even Lucy or Mary! Even the Slytherin we shared the compartment with was prettier!"

"To each his own," murmured Sirius as they slipped into a compartment and lugged their trunks, James's owl cage, and Sirius's guitar case into the luggage rack and threw themselves onto the seats. They sat silently a moment before James rose to his feet again and declared, "Well, I'd better wait outside to see if Moony or Wormtail have arrived –"

"Or Evans," Sirius interjected in a knowing whisper.

"Well, yes, or her," James concluded. "Hold down the fort, eh? Don't let any Slytherins in, no matter _how _attractive!"

"Don't worry – I learned how to resist attractive Slytherins by having them as cousins," Sirius assured him as he settled into his seat.

"Well, good," said James, at the door. "Good to know someone can. I'm not sure Moony can, either – I still swear he had a thing for Andromeda when she was around. See you in a minute!" He left the compartment and the door slid shut.

Peter was the next of their friends to show up, accompanied by his mother, a short, frail-looking woman who wore altogether too much pink, and his younger sister, Anne. His elder sister, Caroline, who had graduated Hogwarts last year, had apparently decided not to honor the occasion with her presence or see her siblings off.

"Oh, and there's James," Mrs. Pettigrew said fondly as she noticed her son's friend approaching. "Hello, James! Had a nice summer?" But she spoke again before James could reply, imploring the pair of them not to get into too much trouble this year.

Peter gave his friend a rueful smile throughout the speech and whilst his mother kissed and hugged him and rattled on about Anne's prospects for becoming a prefect next year. She appeared to have elected to stay at the station with her children until the train departed. They waited for Lupin, chattering about Quidditch and girls, for some time, occasionally waving to other acquaintances as they arrived.

Severus Snape eventually arrived, apparently alone, dressed in his signature overlarge smock, but he and Peter exchanged no more than a mutual glare as he passed, though James tried to trip him but failed. Snape continued onto the train, giving James an even more evil and threatening scowl, clearly planning his retaliation without the presence of so many others. There was no sign of Lily Evans.

It was not until about five minutes before the train was due to leave that Peter and James finally spotted their friend Lupin near the entrance to the platform, sharing a long and tight embrace with his father.

"Moony! Hey, Moony!" shouted James as he dashed toward his werewolf friend, Peter tagging along behind him. Lupin whirled around; his eyes were lined and tired-looking, his face pale as ever, but he smiled warmly at them once he saw them. He was wearing a large, baggy black coat and a Gryffindor-color scarf, though it was not cold, presumably to cover up the robes he was already wearing from the suspicious Muggle eyes outside the barrier.

"Why, if it isn't James and Peter!" he exclaimed in hoarse but delighted voice. They drew closer, and Lupin shamelessly hugged both of them. They broke apart just as the whistle blew to indicate final boarding, and Lupin turned back to his father for final parting words.

Mr. Lupin held his son's hand and whispered something into his ear before finally releasing him with a sad but proud smile and saying, "Well, have a good term, boys! Stay out of trouble, if you can!"

"Thanks!" said James. "Bye, Mr. Lupin." He left, and his son and his two friends hastily gathered their trunks and made their way toward the train.

"Guess what!" said Lupin excitedly as they boarded the train, indicating a black container full of holes that he hauled on to the train before returning for the rest of his luggage, which James helped him move up the stairs. "I got a cat for my birthday in June; I've called her Elizabeth, after my mother's favorite character in Muggle literature."

"You're the only person I know," panted James as the two friends finally managed to get Lupin's trunk up the stairs, "who would honor their _mother's _literature preferences in the naming of their pet."

"There's nothing wrong with that," Lupin said shortly, and Peter shot him a furtive glance and they dragged their trunks down the hall; perhaps he was just very sensitive about his mother?

"Padfoot's saving us a compartment," James was telling his two friends as they moved through the skinny corridor, but then he stopped. "Oh, Hello, Evans," he said, for a beautiful red-haired girl had just appeared in front of him, leading her friends to another compartment on the other side of them, and Lupin just managed to grab James's hand before it touched his hair.

"Potter," she said simply with a curt nod, and she tried to pass him, but he kept blocking her until Lupin gave him a look; he then let her moodily pass with a gentlemanly bow. She smiled warmly, however, at Lupin, greeted him, asked him how his summer was, and touched his shoulder briefly before she passed on.

James stared after the three girls and then to Lupin. "Moony, I'm trying really hard not to be jealous of you."

Lupin went on the defensive immediately. "But – but _you're_ the one who asked me to talk to her! I – I didn't do anything except try to have a polite conversation! I swear – she – she – I never tried – it's nothing . . . more than _friendliness_. Because she's a nice -"

"Moony, chill," James said, turning back to face him with a smile. "I was just messing with you, -although, I don't even get _friendliness_. I'm fully aware you've never been in love with anyone but Sirius's cousin Andromeda."

"I was not! I just said I thought she was pretty! I was too young to even think – _anything_ - when she was still in school," Lupin protested. He took in a deep sigh. "She was too old for me," Lupin concluded. "And she's got that Tonks fellow . . ."

"Yes, and they've got a daughter now. You've still got a chance; maybe she'll look just like her mother," James teased, eyebrows raised as they finally reached the compartment where Sirius waited.

"You are _sick_, Prongs," Lupin told him as they slipped through the door.

A black dog was sitting in the seat, lying in wait for them, and barked fiercely upon their entrance. Upon seeing who it was, however, the dog quickly transformed back into Sirius Black.

"Moony! Wormtail!" he exclaimed as Peter finally came last through the door. Peter waved cheerfully and clapped him on the back, but Lupin gave Sirius yet another tight hug, something Sirius would normally find over-sentimental or awkward, but this time he reciprocated happily.

After taking a moment to hoist his trunk into the overhead shelf with Sirius's help, while James loaded Peter's, Lupin collapsed into the seat opposite him, with Peter beside, while James joined Sirius just as the train took off from the station. Lupin sighed his contentment and leaned back into his seat. "It's so good to see you all," he said happily. Then he quickly stood again and retrieved the black, holey basket. He opened it, and out came a scruffy grey cat with a couple of black and white spots on its body. James's owl hooted in fear, but the cat ignored it. It looked in turn at the four Marauders sitting in the compartment, and then attacked Peter's leg.

"Stop it, Elizabeth!" exclaimed Lupin, pulling the cat off and apologizing to Peter. "You don't hate cats, do you, Sirius? I mean, when you're a dog -?"

"You named your cat _Elizabeth_?" he demanded.

"Well, yes, you see, my Mum really loves _Pride and Prejudice_, so –" began Lupin as the cat settled into his lap, but all three of his friends interrupted.

"What's _Pride and Prejudice_?" they all asked.

"It's a Muggle novel," Lupin replied. "My mother's a Muggle; it's her favorite. She read it to me once. It wasn't bad – sort of, you know, girly, but . . ."

"You named your cat after a character in a girly Muggle novel, just because your Mum likes her?" Sirius demanded again, looking aghast. But then he grinned widely, rolling his eyes. "Only you, Moony . . ."

"Well, it's always seemed odd to me that wizards don't read more Muggle-written novels," Lupin mused. "They're not bad, you know. I think if everyone tried to mix the cultures a little more, people would start to better appreciate the value of Muggle life."

"Says the half-blood who takes Muggle Studies," James grinned.

"Says a pureblood who doesn't!" retorted Lupin. He sat a moment, petting Elizabeth's fluffy head, but made no apology for his sharpness. Instead, he said, "Anyways, congratulations on becoming Quidditch Captain. I think the team will be really great this year."

"Thanks," said James thoughtfully, though Lupin's tetchiness had shocked him. He added, more quietly, "None of us here are pureblood supremists, Moony. We have nothing against Muggles. Your mother was really nice when I met her last year."

"Yeah," added Sirius, "I've never agreed with my family about anything. I am now planning to marry a Muggle girl, preferably one who looks decent in a bikini, just to spite them."

Lupin, Peter and James all laughed.

"Anyways, I've severed all ties with them now, so they probably don't even consider me a member of the Black family anymore," Sirius added more seriously.

"Really?" asked Peter and Lupin in unison.

"I'm sorry," Lupin added, "I mean . . . that they couldn't be reasoned with . . ."

"Yeah," said Sirius vaguely, folding his arms over his black leather jacket and staring down at his biker boots. "James let me stay with him last night." The mood in the compartment had turned unexpectedly gloomy, and James and Peter were pitched with the task of lightening it into what was only proper for the Marauders. Just as James was about to rise to the challenge, the compartment door slid open to reveal Severus Snape.

Now dressed neatly in his wizard robes and Slytherin tie, he looked slightly less ridiculous, but just as ill-willed and furious. "Potter!"

Lupin immediately became very interested in petting Elizabeth's ears. Peter looked afraid of what Snape might do to them, even in the protection of his friends. Sirius gave a smirk and sneered, "Snivellus . . ." under his breath.

"Good to see you again so soon," James said coolly and mockingly. "I trust you will find the score of wrongs standing even today, so I have no intention to engage you in combat."

"You tried to trip me!" Snape raged, pointing his wand as James's chest.

"Good observation," said James. "But I failed, so I didn't get a point there."

"_Petrificus_ _Totalus_!" roared Snape, but Sirius hurled himself in the way of the jinx and fell to the rocking train floor in James's place.

James looked down at him briefly, then back up at Snape, and a truly dangerous expression had just settled onto his face. "_Now _I may have to even things out," he whispered sinisterly as he drew his wand.

"Remember Lily," hissed Lupin in distress, "she didn't want – she said –"

But it was too late. Snape had already been blasted out of the compartment and hurled against the opposite door by James's hex. James slid the door forcefully shut, hauled Sirius back onto his seat and muttered the counter-curse.

"You all right?" asked James, for which Sirius nodded, glaring somehow beyond the solid compartment door to where Snape was. James's glowering, if it was possible, was even more ill-willed and he stuffed his wand away, muttering death threats mingled with loyal oaths about what would happen to those who disrespected his friends. Now Peter alone was not in a bad mood.

Despite this, Sirius was the first to speak after a minute-long stony silence. "So Wormtail, how's Caroline?" he asked in a forcibly calm sort of voice.

"She's doing good," Peter replied. "She just joined the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, under that Crouch fellow – the one with the son in Anne's year . . ."

"Anne's and Regulus's," Sirius muttered grimly. But he smiled back up at Peter momentarily. "Does she send me her love, Peter?"

"Um, no, not specifically," Peter said.

"Wow, Wormy, you are really _amazing _at cheering people up," Sirius told him sarcastically, eliciting small smiles from Lupin and James. "Perhaps I really _will _go and elope with a Muggle."

"Don't get married before I do, Padfoot – when Lily finally gives in, we can have a double wedding," James said with a yawn.

"Or a triple, if Lucy stays with me!" added Peter eagerly.

"Her name's Lucy?" Sirius asked, and Peter nodded. "Fine, a triple wedding," he said, closing his eyes; now both he and James were beginning to feel the effects of last night's sleep deprivation.

Lupin paused momentarily in his petting of Elizabeth and decided at last to remove his heavy coat from his shoulders, revealing his slight frame buried in overlarge robes, and toss it to James to use as a pillow.

"Naw, we gotta get someone to marry Moony, too, if we're gonna be fair at all," yawned James in a slightly loopy voice.

Lupin opened his mouth to protest, but closed it again when he realized both James and Sirius were about to fall asleep. There was a silence in which they fell fully asleep. He had just turned to speak to Peter when their compartment door slid open and a tall, voluptuous blonde girl with a Hufflepuff-color tie was thrown into sharp relief. She had a pretty face but was wearing a rather pouty expression.

"_Peter_," she whined, flinging herself to sitting position in front of him, completely ignoring the three other boys, "I thought you were going to share a compartment with me! How could you forget?"

"Oh," said Peter, "right you are, Lucy! Sorry about that." And without a word, and only a half-glance at his sleeping dark-haired friends, Peter left with her, and Lupin was virtually alone.

Lupin considered this something of a betrayal to the bond of the Marauders, placing a woman before them; he had forgone the trip in the prefects' carriage to stay with his friends, even if they weren't great company at present. Maybe if Lily hadn't forgotten, she could tell him what the prefects were supposed to know. Lupin spread out on the seat and let Elizabeth lie on his chest. He, too, might have happily drifted off then, if he could have a promise of sunny, painless dreams . . .

A few hours later, the witch who pushed the food trolley appeared, offering them sweets and lunch. This quickly awoke James and Sirius, who each ordered vast amounts of sweets as they pulled gold from their pockets.

"And you, dear?" the witch asked Lupin as she passed Sirius his Cauldron Cakes.

"No thanks," Lupin told her politely, fishing in his pocket and feeling perhaps a singular Knut.

"Oh, and five more Chocolate Frogs," James told the witch, handing her more money.

"James, don't –" began Lupin, but James had already shoved the Chocolate Frogs into his hands.

"Now try to resist that," James told him. "It's _chocolate_, Moony. See what cards you've got!"

Lupin smiled and began to unwrap the first. "Thanks, James."

James smiled back as Sirius devoured his first Cauldron Cake. "Where'd Wormy get off to?" he demanded with his mouth full.

"Went off with Lucy," reported Lupin.

"Why, the conniving little traitor," noted James, giving Sirius a mischievous expression.

"I think we need to alter our plans, Prongs," Sirius added, "and not limit dear Lucy as their sole victim – teach Peter a lesson in loyalty. What say you?"

"I say that what you say is what I say," said James, grinning. "And then Wormtail will know never to betray us again!"


	3. The Very Best Idiots

**Hello, and welcome to Chapter three, where they get to Hogwarts at last! Yeppers! I still do not own Harry Potter, because if I did a lot more people would have survived book seven. I really hope you enjoy this story and that you decide to review it! Right-o! Here goes!**

The previous night had passed without any semblance of peace or quiet. James and Sirius, with minimal help from Lupin, had indeed executed their "opening trick" on Peter and Lucy , which involved a mousetrap, Howlers, butterbeer, love potion, and exorbitant amounts of hippogriff feathers, and now Lucy was huffy; James, Sirius, and Lupin were in three separate detentions the next day; and Peter, groveling and ashamed. Sirius, however, had been unable to fully enjoy the effects of the prank, for he had gotten into a shouting match with his younger brother after the opening feast and Sorting, and they both eventually had to be dragged off to their respective common rooms by their friends, Carrow and James, while Lupin led the first years helpfully to their common room. The Marauders had attempted to move back into their dormitory by pasting the walls with posters – motorcycles and bikini-clad Muggle girls beside Sirius's bed; various Quidditch teams and moving photographs of Lily Evans, taken without her knowledge or consent by a third-year he'd paid off, by James's; The Beatles, and stationary photograph of his family, and various drawings by Lupin's, and Gryffindor banners and moving photograph's of the four friends themselves throughout. Peter, it seemed, had been too humiliated to get to much of his own decorating.

The dormitory belonged solely to the Marauders now. For the previous five years, they had had to share it with a boy named Davey Gudgeon, but he had gone to pieces during his Transfiguration OWL last year, and had to repeat fifth year; he had quite willingly agreed to stay in the dormitory with the boys of the year below them.

It was with combined glee and shame that the Marauders rose the next day – though Sirius and James with only glee, and Peter with only shame. Lupin was the only Marauder clearly torn between the two moods as he strolled down the boys' staircase, Elizabeth at his heels, to find James already at Lily's side, Lily perhaps reprimanding him for his disruption of the opening feast, though he could tell she too had found it slightly funny. Upon seeing Lupin and his cat enter the room, however, Lily immediately declared Elizabeth adorable, but James distinctly less so when he asked.

"Her name's Elizabeth," Lupin said fondly as Lily picked up the cat and ruffled its fluffy head while it purred contentedly. "From _Pride_ –"

"_—and Prejudice_!" finished Lily fervently. "Oh, that's one of my _favorites_!"

"Tell you what," said Lupin with a smile, glancing sideways at a slightly sulky-looking James, "if you ever get married, I'll give you Elizabeth as a wedding present."

Lily giggled. "Well, _you're _as loyal as ever," she said. "But it'll never happen, Remus. See you later!" She left to go to breakfast.

"Augh!" raged James. "I knew it was a mistake to have you talk to her last year! Now she likes you better than me! She didn't even tell you off for your part in the 'disruption'! For anything! For not meeting in the prefects' cabin!"

"She is well aware I shall eternally be a dutiful accomplice," Lupin commented, still smiling. "But if she likes _Pride and Prejudice_, then you've still got hope. After all, Elizabeth started off hating Mr. Darcy because she thought he was arrogant. You could be her Mr. Darcy."

"Her _who_?" demanded James.

"Never mind."

After a Howler from Sirius's mother that very morning that informed everyone he had indeed been blasted out of the tapestry and left penniless, and a series of additional spats with his little brother, who berated him constantly about betraying the family name, most of which had landed him in detention, Sirius largely dismissed the whole dispute and declared openly and proudly that he was no longer a member of the Black family; and for all he cared he could be a White, a Grey, a Brown, or a Green.

Meanwhile, he and his fellow sixth years had to settle into their NEWT classes. Lily and Lupin seemed to be taking nearly everything, sans Divination in both their cases, History of Magic (where Lupin and Peter were in a class of about fifteen) and Muggle Studies in hers, and Arithmancy and Potions (in which Lily sat as far from Snape as she could manage) in his. Peter took the bare minimum number of courses, and only ones he shared with friends who could help him. Charms, Transfiguration, and Defense Against the Dark Arts were taken by almost everyone, although Peter's grades had rendered him unable to continue Trasfiguration. Sirius, meanwhile, had a strange aptitude for Astronomy, as James did for Transfiguration.

Not long after classes began, James held Gryffindor Quidditch tryouts. It was a cool but sunny Saturday, and James's three friends had all agreed to come and watch even if they would not try out themselves. While Sirius unrolled James's _Daily Prophet _at the breakfast table for the rather morbid task of scanning the obituaries for familiar names and thinking how easy it was, in this place, to forget that they were at war, James was in the middle of entreating Lily to attend the tryouts as well. Peter seemed subdued, though both Lucy and his friends had ultimately forgiven him for the shenanigans of the day they arrived, and focused on his cornflakes while a letter to Lupin from his father's grey screech owl arrived. He, James, and Peter habitually received mail from their parents. As Lupin read it, however, unnoticed by his friends, his face fell and he pushed his remaining toast aside.

"Not enough sleep?" Peter asked Lupin, who was rubbing his eyes. "Your Ancient Runes looked like murder. I told you you were taking too many classes."

"Yeah," replied Lupin in a strained voice, stuffing the letter in his pocket. "Yeah, that must be it."

"And no one we know is dead," declared Sirius as he set the paper down. He stole the rest of Lupin's toast and grinned through the mouthful, "a good omen."

"Nothing Grim about it," Lupin added, his voice returned to normal.

Sirius laughed. "Oh, don't mock me, Mr. Furry Little Problem."

"Or what? Peter's going to rat on me?"

"Yes! And when we all do this quadruple wedding, I won't invite you to James's stag party!"

"_Dear_ me, that wouldn't be fun."

As the three of them present all roared with laughter, James returned grinning from ear to ear and declaring that Lily had at last given in and agree to attend Quidditch tryouts and cheer on the new players.

In ten minutes' time, they the three other Marauders were sitting in the stands of the sunny Quidditch pitch, watching as about thirty fellow Gryffindors nervously mounted their brooms and separated into groups by their aspired position. There seemed to be the highest number of would-be Seekers, and the highest proportion of girls in the Chaser line. The Beater and Keeper lines were significantly smaller, and contained only one girl apiece.

First, James tried out for the two remaining Chaser positions, as he himself filled the first. There were moments of general chaos, as the Quaffle was handled and mishandled and fought over, and one first-year girl named Julie Perkin left in tears after James (as kindly as he could manage) told her she had not made it onto the team. In the end, a girl named Florence Watson and a boy named Uriah Lee-Hopkirk were chosen as the Chasers.

The Keeper tryouts that followed were rather depressing. All the old faces from the previous two year had returned, with no more talent than before, and none of the first-years showed much promise either. After all of them failed at blocking realistically-skilled throws, James tossed the Quaffle as lightly and slowly as he could, and only one person, a seedy-looking third-year named Nicholas Sky, had managed to block it.

To make up for that unhappy conclusion, however, Beater tryouts were immensely more satisfying. The singular girl among their participants flew as swift as the wind and was positively brutal to the Bludgers. She was able to defend all of her already-chosen prospective teammates alone and no one got hit the entire time. She was also quite enthusiastic in trying to hit her opponents with Bludgers, though admittedly she had very weak aim, and would often hit a foot or the twigs of a broom instead of a player's body. Nonetheless, James selected Octavia Diggle as his first Beater. The other Beater, Dirk Cresswell, was slower and sneakier, and had much better aim and slightly stronger arm strength, though less enthusiasm.

The last set of tryouts, for the Seeker position, took about an hour by themselves because of the sheer number of students who had shown up. James meticulously watched each pursue the Snitch, and his mind was boggled by the number of outstanding Seekers he might have, in comparison to no outstanding Keepers. In the end, however, Lily's friend Mary Macdonald was chosen.

As Lily dashed onto the field to hug and congratulate her, the watching Marauders climbed down from the stands and made their way to the ground, where James was slowly ushering the team together into a huddle to discuss practice times. All the new team members were glowing with exhilaration, but none more than Octavia Diggle, whose Beater's bat had not been still since she arrived on the pitch that morning. She beamed at everyone who passed by, a smile of such spirit and warmth that in spite of himself, Lupin found himself grinning timidly back as they, with Lily and all the other spectators, left the field and newly-formed team.

One Monday not long after was getting close enough to the first full moon of the school year that Lupin's emotions seemed to have been affected. When Sirius found them leaving Muggle Studies for lunch, Peter seemed desperate and panicky, and Lupin, arms crossed, was scowling resolutely.

"Come _on_, Moony! You're a _prefect_! And they're going to _kill _you! It's not worth it!" Peter implored.

"Yes, it is," Lupin said shortly. "They can't say things like that."

"What's happening?" asked Sirius.

"Moony's having a duel with Mulciber and Avery," Peter told him.

"Sweet! Can I be your second?" asked Sirius.

"Yeah," said Lupin. "Meet me at midnight in—"

"Sirius, no! We're not supporting this!" Peter shouted incredulously.

"I support what I wanna support, and it's definitely more Moony than Avery and Mulciber. I can't stand them. I just want to know what for," Sirius said, looking back to Lupin for answers.

"Mulciber implied that all Muggles deserve to die," Lupin said, his voice shaking with rage. "And Avery laughed, and . . . well, they don't! My mother does _not_ deserve to die!"

Sirius looked slightly confused. "Well, I sort of got the impression that that was their attitude from the beginning. They're _Death_ _Eaters_, Moony – what do you expect?"

Lupin's reply was lost as James appeared out of nowhere. "Hey, guys! What d'you all look so serious for?"

"Moony and I are dueling Avery and Mulciber tonight," Sirius said with a grin of satisfaction.

"Are you _serious_?" demanded James.

"That's my name."

James groaned. "That pun is getting so old."

"Ah, Prongsie," said Sirius tossing his arms around all three of his friends as they entered the Great Hall for lunch. "Puns never get old – they just get _classic_."

Lupin spent the rest of the day battling with himself over whether he should really do it. He had always been the most mature among his friends, the one who dissuaded this sort of thing. And he was a _prefect_, who was supposed to _enforce_ the rules. But still some part of him, some nagging voice told him that backing out made him a coward – unworthy to be called a Gryffindor. And it would be like agreeing with Mulciber's claims! He would not let Muggles suffer this, and so his pride got the better of him.

As he sat contemplating in an armchair by the fire that evening, Elizabeth sleeping in his lap, Sirius playing guitar in the corner, much to the delight of a nearby clutch of female admirers, James and his Quidditch team returned from practice, grinning. James and Mary immediately went over to speak to Lily, who was browsing her Potions book in the corner, while Dirk and Florence retreated to another to affirm their affection for one another. Uriah seemed to be trying to cheer up Nicholas, the only member of the team unpleased with the night's practice. Octavia, finding the rest of her team otherwise engaged, settled into an armchair by the fire beside Lupin.

"Hello!" she said cheerfully to him, holding out her hand in friendly gesture. "My name's Octavia Diggle, and you're Remus Lupin, aren't you?"

"Indeed I am," replied Lupin, shaking her hand, which was strong and rough to touch, and somewhat dirty from the muddy outdoor practice. "Pleased to meet you, Miss Diggle."

"Oh, please, don't call me 'Miss Diggle'. Just sounds silly, doesn't it? Octavia is two hundred percent more impressive, don't you think? And speaking of impressive, did anyone ever tell you that your hair looks really great in a ponytail?" Octavia asked. She had a mild Cockney accent.

"Um, no, thanks," said Lupin awkwardly, blushing slightly. He had only put his longish hair in a ponytail so it wouldn't fall in his face during Herbology, and had then forgotten to take it out. Searching for something polite to say, he added, "You're, um, a really good Beater, from what I've seen."

"Oh, _thank you_!" said Octavia, sounding genuinely touched. "I've wanted to be on the Quidditch team since I was five years old, and everyone said to be a Chaser, but I thought Beaters were much more fun – you got to wield a bat and defend people. D'you like Quidditch? What position would you wanna play?"

Octavia was of slender build, but equal in height to Lupin. Her hair was short, black, and curly, and her eyes as piercingly blue as Lily's were green. "I dunno, maybe Seeker? But I'd be pretty rubbish at that. I do like Quidditch, though. I just can't play it worth a Sickle. The only team that would ever accept me would be the Chudley Cannons . . ."

"Well, I betcha a whole Galleon you're a better Keeper than poor Nick," Octavia grimaced, glancing over at Nicholas, whom Uriah was still trying to cheer up. She slapped his shoulder and stood. "Anyways, nice meetin' ya! Wotcher!"

Midnight came only after hours or torturous waiting in which number of common and uncommon things occurred: Peter fell asleep in the common room, Sirius enjoyed the company of three girls at once, Lily laughed at a joke of James's, which left him ecstatic, and Elizabeth spent a blissful hour being petted and adored by Lily and a great number of her female friends.

At last, everyone else had retired to bed; Lupin and Sirius lit their wand-tips and set off down the corridors in search of the appointed meeting place: the hallway beside the kitchens, where Avery and Mulciber presumably laid in wait.

They arrived a few minutes after Sirius and Lupin did. Lupin drew his wand immediately and held it up to Mulciber, who gave him a superior sneer as he casually drew his own. Sirius and Avery leered at each other in the background.

Lupin gave Mulciber a stiff bow and Mulciber once again sniffed his disdain and gave a slight nod that a highly imaginative person might have taken for a bow. They stood facing each other glaringly, wands out, faces set, for possibly five seconds.

"_Reducto_!" roared Mulciber, aiming straight at Lupin's chest; he dodged and shouted, "_Impedimenta_!" which also missed its mark.

"_Tarantellegra_!" Lupin shouted instead. Mulciber again dodged, but the spell sped past him and instead hit Avery, who immediately began to dance uncontrollably. Sirius burst out laughing while Lupin made sure he was not standing directly in front of Sirius, lest he should dodge and Mulciber's curse hit his friend instead.

But instead of cursing him, Mulciber simply snapped his fingers, and several more Slytherins appeared, casting aside their Disillusionment charms, among them Nott, Macnair, Carrow, and Snape. They all began shooting curses at the same time.

"_Reducto!"_

_ "Crucio!"_

_ "Sectumsempra!"_

The first two spells missed both of them, but loudly demolished a nearby suit of armor, and the third sliced across Lupin's arm. Sirius felt the need to intervene, hoisting Snape, caster of "_Sectumsempra_", by his ankle with "_Levicorpus_," whilst Lupin gasped and grimaced but successfully disarmed Macnair while Avery danced on.

More curses were shot out wildly, and Lupin Stupefied Carrow and Sirius Nott, after he had hoisted Snape onto a rafter to dangle from and Disarmed him. It was not until after Mulciber Imperioed Sirius to let Snape down and was about to Crucio the both of them for good measure that Filch showed up with Mrs. Norris at his heels.

Finding them all rather beat-up in appearance, notwithstanding the look of the surrounding walls, they were all given detention and sent back to their common rooms.

"Well," said Sirius after a moment of walking in silence back up the stair toward Gryffindor tower, "that was fun. I'm sure you changed all their minds, and they all really _love_ Muggles now."

Lupin grunted noncommittally. Sirius indicated Lupin's right arm, which was bleeding from Snape's "_Sectumsempra_"spell. "Is that alright?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," Lupin assured him. "I've had worse."

Sirius gave an airy laugh, knowing Lupin's pain resistance was higher than most due to the excruciating nature of his werewolf transformations. They had reached the portrait hole, and had to wake the Fat Lady, which annoyed her immensely. As they climbed the boys' staircase, Sirius bemoaned, changing the subject, "Leave it to Slytherins to cheat and bring reinforcements." He yawned. "They're cowards, all of them. I've never been gladder to be Sorted to Gryffindor, 'where dwell the brave at heart'."

They entered the dormitory and found that Peter was already asleep, while they parried James's questions and tried to heal Lupin's arm. Finally, they had all thrown themselves down on their beds.

"Sirius," said Lupin after a long moment. "Having that duel – was that stupid?"

"Of course it was, Moony," said Sirius soothingly. "One of the stupidest thing I've ever seen you do, in fact. But I'd do it again with you any day."

"It was refreshing, actually," James added, "to see you doing something as stupid as us for a change. Stupidity is a major component of the Marauder way, and pointless heroics are the path of Gryffindor. So give yourself a break. We're really proud of you, mate."

"And go to sleep," Sirius added, "in the knowledge that you're one of the four best idiots in the world."

Lupin laughed. "Thanks."


	4. Transformation, Altercation, Cartography

**Hello, welcome to Chapter 4! We're APPROACHING having something of a plot now; there are some hints in this chapter, and also some hints of things to come in the books, I think. I don't have a beta reader, so I apologize in advance for spelling errors and left-out words and things that I tend to do when I write late at night and I'm on a roll. Once again, I don't own anything I've ever written a fan fic about, Harry Potter included. My initials are nowhere near JKR . . . So, if you're still interested in this story up to this point, it would really mean a LOT if you left me a review. Thanks! And enjoy!**

In an instance of good luck, Sirius and Lupin were placed in the same detention, cleaning out Kneazle cages with Hagrid, who was always kind to them. Hagrid spent most of the time wondering aloud to a sympathetic Lupin how long Professor Kettleburn would stay around to teach Care of Magical Creatures, having lost his left hand the previous week to an irate young chimera, while Sirius chatted with James through his two-way mirror.

Having scourged away the final bit of filth from the last Kneazle cage with a flourish, Lupin sunk exhaustedly into the nearest chair at Hagrid's table.

"Alrigh', Remus?" Hagrid asked Lupin concernedly. "Ya look a bit peaky. Wan' ter stay fer a cuo o' tea?"

"Nah," Lupin breathed politely, getting quickly to his feet again, "I've got too much homework tonight. Some other day, Hagrid." And he and Sirius left, bidding Hagrid goodbye.

When they finished dinner, Lupin not having much of an appetite, and returned to the common room, there was still a good hour and a half before sunset and the rising of the full moon. When Lupin announced to his three friends that he would indeed be using this time to do some homework, they all three gave him rather pitying glances and left the common room, to get up to their own separate mischief. He could just see Sirius stealing James's invisibility cloak as the door swung shut. As Lupin spread his books across the table and Elizabeth rubbed against Lily and Octavia's legs over in corner, apparently preferring their company, he sighed, the recent cut on his arm from his duel stinging incessantly in a sort of sick rhythm with the throbbing of the scar from his werewolf bite from so many years ago . . . He turned back to his books. He always got this feeling of mingled excitement and dread before every transformation at Hogwarts . . .

James, meanwhile, was on a mission. He had made precious little progress on the Lily Evans front since the beginning of the year. Sure, she had laughed at his joke in the common room yesterday, but then so had everyone else present. She still rolled her eyes at him, avoided him, and reprimanded him at every opportunity. She still liked Lupin so much more than him. It was time for a more direct approach, so he'd have a good feeling before he joined Lupin in his transformation this evening.

He was going to give Lily a bouquet of lilies from the greenhouses. Sure, it wasn't a grandiose gesture, but you could be direct and still small and sweet. Small and sweet like Lily herself . . . and with a few sensitive-sounding and well-chosen words, she just might not throw them back in his face . . .

As he was leaving the Greenhouses with a handful of beautiful stolen lilies, he heard menacing voices around the corner. As he rounded it, he saw a gang of five Slytherins surrounding Peter.

"And you can tell your half-breed pal that I prefer the Riverdance," Avery was saying, while Carrow laughed trollishly.

"And _I'd_ be happy finish what Severus started, and spill the rest of the filthy half of his blood any day," concluded Antonin Dolohov.

"And as for you, fatso –" began Macnair, but James cut him off.

"Is there a problem, boys?" he asked coolly, getting defensively in front of Peter, who was crumpled against the wall, apparently already having sustained some damage from them. James, seeing this, became irrationally angry, and yet another fight ensued between two Marauders and five Slytherins. As their best fighter, Snape, was not there, however, and the Marauders' best fighter, James, was, it ended rather differently, with all five Slytherins paralyzed on the ground with various hex marks sprouting unpleasantly on their faces.

"Well," breathed James, in a combination of outrage and satisfaction as he helped Peter down the long corridor and towards the stairs, "since we didn't get to join in the fun last night in this place, I suppose this compensates nicely." He grinned around the basement hallway. "And _we _didn't even get in trouble for it. So, where were you headed, Wormy? The kitchens?"

"Hufflepuff common room," Peter told him. "I have a date with Lucy."

James turned quickly. "But Peter, it's full moon tonight. Surely _you _didn't forget this time! We have to go to the grounds, have to be with Moony."

"But I planned this with Lucy," Peter faltered.

"So cancel it!" demanded James.

"But Lucy will be mad . . ." he continued weakly.

"So will we!" James declared. "You need to sort out your priorities. This is a sacred tradition!"

"Not so sacred on that last full moon of last year, though, was it?" Peter spat bitterly. "You just left me, sleeping in the common room . . ."

"I already apologized for that!" James snapped. "And you got a butterbeer out of the deal, _and _you made a solemn vow not to betray us again, after you did so with the very same girl! Moony will feel betrayed – you know how sensitive he is sometimes."

"I made that vow after I was publicly humiliated!" retorted Peter hotly.

"It was a _joke_, Pete. Why would you even hang out with us if you can't take a joke?" James demanded.

"I didn't find it funny."

"Well how are we going to freeze the Willow without you?"

"Use a stick – you had no trouble with it last year."

"I just saved your hide from five Slytherins!" James added finally, and a long silence followed while the two boys glared at each other.

"I'm going with Lucy," Peter said defiantly. He experienced a moment of panic in which he truly thought James was going to curse him, and almost relented. James was most certainly a more accomplished duelist than Lucy, but Peter had also been warned that '_hell hath no fury like a woman scorned_'.He knew that James would never betray him to such a degree, so an angry Lucy frightened him much more.

"Fine," James said finally, in a disturbingly curt voice grating with scorn. "Have fun with little Lucy. And stay off the grounds if you don't want to die."

Peter said nothing, but whipped around so quickly and forcefully that his robe flew up and ruined James's bouquet, scattering petals on the ground. James, resisting the urge to hex Peter and leave him there with the five Slytherins, instead checked his watch and left the corridor.

When Sirius returned to the common room, it was to find that Lupin's homework had spread to cover two tables, and Lupin himself was throwing a book aside, pausing in his progress to sigh in aggravation, and rubbing his hand across his pale, sweaty face.

"Heya, Moony," said Sirius, placing a mug of cocoa on the edge of Lupin's table and reaching over to scratch Elizabeth, who had settled on top of his Ancient Runes book. "This is for you. How're you holding up?"

"I feel like rubbish," he said rather miserably, nodding his thanks to Sirius and taking the mug. "The moon's a harsh mistress, as they say. I just wish she'd get it over with. _And_ I'm going to fail Muggles Studies."

"How on earth can you fail Muggle Studies when your mother's a Muggle?" Sirius demanded.

Lupin didn't answer. "I'm not going to be any fun tonight, am I?" he asked plaintively instead, gulping his cocoa. "You and Prongs and Wormtail are going to get bored out of your minds . . . you'll fall asleep in the middle of the forest and then I'll get loose and bite someone . . ."

"Don't be a prat, Moony. It doesn't suit someone who gets better OWLS than half the Ravenclaws," Sirius told him. He didn't know if he was amused or alarmed; usually Lupin wasn't _this _depressed before his transformation. Perhaps he'd grown accustomed to unpleasant, solitary ones over the summer . . .

"Anyway, speaking of Prongs and Wormtail, have you seen either of them?" Sirius asked. "Because I have the Cloak and we'll have to all be under it again . . ."

"We should look," Lupin breathed, beginning with difficulty to stand, but Sirius pushed him back down.

"Take it easy," said Sirius gently. "They'll show up eventually, they always do, but I just wish there was a way we could always find each other . . ."

Lupin was taking a scrap of parchment out of a nearby book. "I wonder . . ." he began, his eyes narrowing. He snatched his wand from where it sat on his History of Magic book and began to tap it and mutter. "Not this quick, but with a bit of development . . ." He trailed off again and looked back up at Sirius, who didn't know what he was talking about and was giving him a quizzical look. It was then that James burst into the room, chucking bits of ruined lilies on the ground and looking most ill-tempered himself.

"Peter's not coming," he told Sirius coldly.

"_What_?" demanded Sirius. "The prat! Where is he? What's he doing?"

"Somewhere with darling Lucy Smith," said James venomously, tossing the final remains of his mangled flowers onto Lupin's books, startling Elizabeth, while Lupin stowed the parchment back in the book. "I mean, _honestly_, he can't like her anymore than I love Lily, but I never . . . I never _abandon_ you fine gents for her!"

"How are we going to get into the passage?" demanded Sirius.

"He said, 'Use a stick,'" James repeated gratingly. "And after I saved his sorry skin from five Slytherins and everything!"

"_What_?" demanded Lupin in a horrified voice.

"Five Slytherins – all Death Eaters, I think – cornered Pete and attacked him," James explained. "They mentioned you – and something about preferring a Riverdance . . .?"

Sirius could help laughing as he remembered Avery's spell-induced dancing. Lupin, however, looked even more horrified. "Oh my – my _word_, I started this! I started it with that stupid duel! Now they're going after Peter! It's all my fault!" He now looked more miserable than ever, and checked his watch. "I should – I should get to the hospital wing, so I'm not late again." He stood and strode shakily to the portrait hole, looking back with a weak smile, and said, "Well, I'll see you in a bit, if – you know, if . . . you still want to come."

There was a tense silence after the door swung shut behind him. Then Sirius turned back to James, handing him the Invisibility Cloak, and said, in a very serious voice, "I still reckon Avery was better at the Tarantella."

James laughed, but it was half-hearted, and Sirius knew his friend pitied Lupin again. He glanced over at Lily, who was gazing in their direction, but who quickly hid behind her Arithmancy book when she saw him. He grinned. _Score, Prongs_.

They always waited about ten minutes before going down to meet Lupin in the Shrieking Shack. They had made the mistake of following him directly in the Invisibility Cloak once, but actually watching him transform had been agonizing; it had given poor Peter nightmares for a week, and James had nearly cried for witnessing such pain. If it was so horrific to watch, none of them could imagine what it must be like to actually do it. Since then Lupin said he preferred to be alone when he transformed, and they had gladly complied.

While they waited, Sirius amused himself by looking through the enormous amount of Lupin's books on the table. The one he had stuffed the parchment into was a novel, published the previous year, entitled _Hairy Snout, Human Heart_. Lupin's Muggle Studies book was lying open in front of his now-empty chair, in a section about wizards' perceptions of Muggles. On a piece of parchment beside it his homework was copied: to 'write an essay defending both sides of the Muggle debate.' Nearby, his Defense Against the Dark Arts book was also open to the chapter about Dark creatures, with a gruesome picture of a werewolf captioned '_The very Darkest of Dark Creatures_' . . . Passing over these depressing items, which no doubt had contributed to Lupin's downcast mood, he found beneath them a most unexpected item: _Moste Potente Potions_. He wasn't even _taking _Potions! What did he have that for?

The only person in the room he knew for sure was taking Potions was Lily Evans. Sirius watched James walk away from the ever-dejected Nicholas Sky and towards Lily, no doubt for the sole purpose of spoiling her newly-formed better opinion of him.

"Prongs!" Sirius called, and James turned to look at him. "It's time."

The night passed as the usual daring adventure under the glowing moon – except that James and Sirius were slightly more scraped-up due to the Whomping Willow and the absence of Peter's assistance in passing it. It had been something of a relief, in other ways, that they had not had to continually keep checking to see if the little rat was keeping up . . .

When the moon had waned away, the three boys, now all thoroughly exhausted and thoroughly human again, made their weary, grinning way back up to Gryffindor tower to catch a half an hour's sleep before class started. They shared some newly-traditional breakfast chocolate, this time supplied by Lupin, a tradition that was shaping up to exclude Peter, before they returned to their dormitory and threw their weary selves onto their beds, looking determinedly away from the snoring boy already there.

Awakening from an untroubled but entirely too short rest, they dragged themselves through the drudgery of the day; In Trasfiguration, both Sirius and James fell asleep and Lupin was an inch away from it, so he kept raising his hand and answering McGonagall's questions just to keep himself interested, though he was perhaps the most tired of all three.

Because they also slept through most of lunch, only to be awakened by Lily, (who somehow found it in her heart to be annoyed at Sirius and James for their laziness, yet pity Lupin's fatigue and be worry herself over his health, much to James's outrage) they were the last to arrive in Charms. James and Sirius immediately found the a pair of seats near the back and sat there together, leaving Lupin to lower himself wearily into the last remaining desk, right next to Peter's.

While they did not speak and were unnaturally attentive while Flitwick gave his lesson, the moment he left them to begin practicing the Supersensory Charm on their partner in the neighboring desk, Lupin turned to Peter and asked casually, "So, Peter, how was your date with Lucy?"

Peter looked most taken aback by his friendly tone, and answered, "Um . . . it was . . . um, nice. She let me kiss her four times in a row by the end . . ."

"Nice," said Lupin lightly. "So, you want to try the charm first, or should I?"

"You're gonna forgive him just like that?" demanded Sirius forty minutes later as they made their way to Care of Magical Creatures, their last class of the day. "After what he did to you?"

"Mmm?" said Lupin distractedly, turning his weary eyes back on his friend, pulling his robes (already fully fastened) closely about him and tightening his scarf as if to fend off chills.

"You know, I really don't think it's a good idea for you to try and go to classes the day after your – well, the manifestation of your furry little problem," said James, cautiously watching as some Ravenclaws passed by. "You should spend more time with Madam Pomfrey, like you used to."

"Oh – no – I'm – I'm just . . . tired," Lupin said, though his limping gait and the greyness and amount of Band-Aids on his face somewhat contradicted him. "What were you saying?"

"Wormtail," said Sirius vehemently. "He betrayed _you_ more than any of us – and yet you're the one who acts like nothing's happened."

"He was busy," Lupin dismissed. "He's entitled to be busy, to have a girlfriend . . ."

"Yeah, but to have a date on the full moon? He knows that's _our_ time!" James raged.

"Maybe she asked him," Lupin said.

"Well, then how hard would it have been to say 'how about the next day?' or 'how about right after class?' _Honestly_!" James said harshly.

"Maybe he was scared she'd get mad?" Lupin suggested lightly.

"Then he needs to man up or find a nicer girlfriend," Sirius concluded.

"Well, you were all doing this as a favor to me anyways, so if he didn't –" began Lupin.

"Oh, it's become more than that, I'll tell you," said James. "No offense. That passage we found last night – and, and that funny little place called the Room of Doom – that's all part of it now. Now this ritual is a part of the Marauder Code, and no one breaks the Marauder Code . . . it's just _wrong_. Betrayal."

"There's a Marauder Code?" demanded Lupin.

"In his own mind, Moony," Sirius told him in a stage whisper. "But he's right. It was wrong. Wormy is a slimy rat until I say otherwise."

"Look – people make mistakes!" said Lupin desperately. "We have to stay together – we can't break apart like this! I don't . . . I don't want to lose my friends."

His earnestly was not lost to his friends, but before they could remark on their loyalty or give him any comfort, Professor Kettleburn announced that today they would try to tame the chimera that had eaten his hand.

When class was over and the students dispersed (most nursing small injuries and murmuring death threats to Professor Kettleburn) Lupin returned immediately to his dormitory. Assuming he was going to have a good long nap to recover from the ills of his transformation, Sirius waited a few minutes before going in to steal James's Snitch and tick him off. When he entered, however, it was to find that Lupin was not asleep, but poring over a piece of parchment, wand sitting nearby, quill on the other side. It was the same parchment he had been looking at when Sirius wanted to know where Peter and James were the previous night.

"Are you going to tell me what that is?" he asked, making Lupin jump.

"It's a map," he replied. "A map of Hogwarts I've been drawing. I just added that new passage and the Room of Doom."

Sirius tore it out of his hands and examined it. When he lowered from his eyes, he was grinning. "You are such an overachiever, Moony."

"But there's more," said Lupin, scrambling to his feet and taking the map back. He pointed to a miniscule dot in the section of the map representing the trophy room. In tiny ink were written the words "James Potter".

"No way," said Sirius. "It shows where people are?"

"Well, just him, so far," said Lupin modestly. "But I'm trying to figure out how to have it show more than one person. Then I'll add the rest of us, so – so we can always find each other."

"A _sentimental _overachiever," Sirius amended, smacking Lupin on the shoulder. "But that's a pretty useful type of friend."

Lupin looked pleased. "I might need some help finishing it . . ." he admitted. "But I think I'd like to call it . . ."

They finished in unison: "The Marauders' Map."


	5. Roses for Lily

**Welcome to Chapter 5! STILL not developing a plot in this Chapter, curse my plotting skills! So this chapter just might be completely and utterly pointless. Next chapter I promise things will happen! I solemnly swear! Also, I would like to thank the three lovely people who left me those three lovely reviews! And the person who favorited this, and the people who added it to their subscription thingies! You all rock! Those things made my day and inspired me to write more, because honestly I was losing faith in his endeavor. I hope it will be worth it for you to keep with me. And I still don't own Harry Potter. Enjoy! **

Time passed and September waned away along with the moon. The animosity between the Death Eater Slytherin gang and the Marauders blossomed horribly, and not a day went by without some sort of minor scuffle or at least some nasty words being volleyed back and forth like tennis balls. James, the best athlete, was unsurprisingly the best at this sport as well. He and Sirius still weren't talking to Peter, who had taken to sneaking over to the Hufflepuff table at mealtimes to sit with Lucy. Poor Lupin tried with limited success to get them to speak again, but all were adamant, and eventually Lucy became annoyed with him coming to speak to Peter so often. Sirius, meanwhile, remained virtually broke due to being cut off from his family, though with great bravado he told everyone that being rid of his family was worth more Galleons than they had ever possessed.

It was a blustery day about two weeks after James and Sirius's estrangement from Peter, and Lupin was just leaving Ancient Runes, walking side-by-side with Lily, their prefect badges glinting in unison as they passed through shafts of sunlight. Having exhausted the topic of Ancient Runes, for they both understood quite thoroughly, Lupin had once again brought up the topic of James and Lily's coldness toward him.

"He's just really loyal," he told her imploringly. "I mean, every time that I'm . . . um, not feeling well, he's there. He would never _look _at another woman if he was with you. He doesn't really, anyway!"

"Mmm, not so loyal to Pettigrew, though, is he?" Lily asked acidly. "And if he never _looked _at another girl, how's he supposed to win his precious Quidditch Cup? Unless he just lets Mary do whatever she wants – and then why would the team even _need_ a Captain?"

Lupin frowned. "I wish – I wish there were some way I could tell you . . . how James really is. What he does for me . . . and for all of us."

They had reached a convergence of corridors, where Lupin was headed to History of Magic and Lily to Potions.

"Well, see you later, Remus!" said Lily cheerfully, descending the stairs toward the dungeons just as some Slytherins did.

"Goodbye, Lily," said Lupin with a sad smile, turning left.

As he strode wearily toward history of magic, adjusting his red-and-gold tie, he heard a sinister voice fading from hearing as well. "Hello, Evans . . ."

"Mulciber," said Lily curtly, her voice become quieter as she said it; she seemed to be moving away from him quickly.

Lupin heard his heavier footsteps and another pair accosting hers. "What'sa matter, Evans? You scared of me?" It was now Avery's voice. Lupin stopped walking to listen, much to the annoyance of some Ravenclaws walking behind him.

"_Hardly_," said Lily with a lofty bravado that did not entirely bury the lie in this statement. "I merely find your presence rather sickening."

"Remembering what I did to sweet little Mary last year, are you?" Mulciber asked mockingly. "Would gladly take Potter now, wouldn't you? _Wouldn't you, Mudblood_?"

Lupin spun around. "No! Now leave me alone!" Lily commanded them fiercely. "I have to get to Potions!"

"STAY WHERE YOU ARE, MUDBLOOD!"

Lily gave a terrified moaning gasp and Lupin began to bolt down the stairs.

"Tell me _really_, aren't I scaring you more than he would?"

Suddenly Avery gave a shout and Lupin tripped down the remainder of the stairs.

"Why you filthy—" began Mulciber, and Lily gave a scream.

Lupin straightened up and held his wand toward Mulciber. "Leave her alone!" he commanded, seeing Lily splayed and twitching palely on the ground, giving terrified, gasping shrieks.

"Oh, it's Potter's little friend! You want me to spill the filthy half of _your_ blood, too?"

But in the time it took him to mock Lupin, he used a nonverbal _"Expelliarmus"_ and Mulciber's wand went flying across the dungeon. "Now back off," Lupin commanded, and he ran to Lily, lifted her into his arms, and bolted for the hospital wing.

In twenty minutes' time, the hospital wing was bustling with Lily's friends that Madam Pomfrey was trying to fend off. Lupin wondered if he should leave and go to History of Magic. Madam Pomfrey said Lily would be alright, but she had hardly ever had to treat wounds from such Dark magic before.

"Mulciber should be expelled," said Marlene, a friend of Lily's from Ravenclaw, and Lupin, Alice and Mary (who was shivering and sobbing quietly) all nodded in agreement.

"But it looks like she went down fighting," piped up Alice savagely, glancing to the next bed where Avery lay, a victim of Lily's self-defensive Bat-Bogey Hex, which had ultimately provoked Mulciber's final attack.

Lupin asked Lily's friends if they wanted to be alone with her, and if he should leave and go to History of Magic.

"Mate, I'd take _any _opportunity to cut History of Magic," said Marlene. "_You_ saved her, didn't you? So stay! We won't bite. It was good on ya, mate."

"I've never heard of a Ravenclaw wanting to cut class before," said Lupin lightly.

"Have you _met _Professor Binns?"

Suddenly the door of the hospital wing burst open and James came dashing in, straight to the edge of Lily's bed, taking in her pale face set against the bright redness of her hair. He looked horrified. "Is she alright?" he demanded, turning and clenching Lupin's shoulder.

"She's fine; she's going to be fine," Lupin assured him in what he hoped was a soothing voice. "She'll have to take a lot of potions and be in here for about a week, but she'll be OK, James. Honestly."

"I thought—" James began, his voice nearly breaking, "—with . . . with Mulciber's reputation –" He couldn't go on.

Lupin put his arms around his friend in a comforting embrace. "She's fine. I think Slytherin lost fifty points for it." He paused. "I'm . . . I'm sorry I couldn't have gotten there faster, James, and stopped the whole thing from happening."

"Hey, don't be silly," said James, recovering slightly and joining Mary on the left of Lily's bed. "It was _Mulciber_." His voice filled with venomous rage as he said the name, and Mary shivered again. Alice put a comforting arm around her. "That filthy _scumbag_. That – that sadistic _son of a Bludger_!"

Lupin felt worse than ever. Because of his idiotic need to duel Mulciber and Avery over an already-implied opinion, he had started this whole chain reaction, enraging the Slytherins' anger with the Marauders, eventually leading them to target their other loved ones . . . Or was it only the fact that Lily was Muggle-born?

Saying he felt ill, Lupin made for the exit of the hospital wing, leaving Lily with James and her friends. "If you feel ill, why are you _leaving _the hospital wing?" Marlene demanded just as the door swung shut. He needed to be alone, to compose himself. He just wanted to stop thinking about it for a moment. He ducked into a nearby frequently-empty classroom, but found to his dismay that Mulciber and Snape were having a heated shouting match within. Not wanting to hear or be anywhere near either of them, he left.

"Hiya, Remus!"

He looked up. It was Octavia Diggle. "Oh, hello, Octavia," he said awkwardly. "Er – what class are _you_ skipping right now?"

"Arithmancy," she said with distaste, "Mum made me take it. What class are _you_ skipping? You didn't strike me a skipper."

"I'm not, usually. But, well . . ." he sighed, and suddenly found himself explaining the whole situation to the girl, including his illegal duel, James's love for Lily, their camaraderie falling apart at the seams, and how he felt responsible for Avery and Mulciber's aggressions.

Having finished the tale, he fell silent, and it was a moment before he had the courage to look back into Octavia's eyes. "Well," she said matter-of-factly, with an amused expression, "you have one _world_-_class_ guilt complex if I ever saw one!"

"But if I hadn't been such an idiot –" began Lupin, but Octavia interrupted.

"Then those stupid Slytherins would still be idiots," she said firmly. "Look, come with me, you need a cup of tea." And she pulled him to his feet and dragged him by the arm to the kitchens, where a hundred house-elves were waiting to serve them.

For a long time, he sat in the kitchen, contemplating his tea, occasionally watching the house-elves milling about preparing dinner. Finally Octavia broke the silence. "Merlin's _beard_, how can you stand sitting for so long? I'm gonna go practice my aim! See you later, Remus!" She waved and he waved back, and sat reticently and thoughtfully in the kitchen for the rest of the class period, after which he set off to find little lost first-years he could kindly show the way to and alleviate one small layer of burning guilt in his chest.

James dragged him back to the hospital wing after the school day ended, for Lily had apparently woken up and demanded the opportunity to thank her rescuer. Sirius was there when he arrived as well, standing a short distance from the bed, talking to Marlene. Mary and Alice had apparently left.

He found the interview very awkward given the circumstances, and dismissed her repeated thanks, instead apologizing for not being faster; she, in turn, advised him not to be a prat as Madam Pomfrey sat a wooden tray on her lap with some syrupy purple potion for her to take. Lupin took this as his opportunity to go, and drag along Sirius and Marlene, leaving James and Lily in peace. Perhaps a bit of sensitive bedside sympathy could do the trick . . .

And Lily remembered, vaguely, waking very late into that night and seeing a single vase of roses by on her bedside table, with a card marked "_To Lily, Love from James_." And as in the darkness and solitude, as she would nowhere else, she smiled at it as she lapsed back into sleep . . .

As the week wore on, and Lily grew stronger, the Marauders visited her every day, and she tolerated their presence quite gracefully, given that Lupin would often bring along Elizabeth, and Sirius would sometimes play his guitar for her. (She told Lupin privately that Mulciber's questions before attacking had forced her to admit that James Potter was indeed preferable to many alternatives.) Lupin even brought along Peter one night when James had Quidditch practice. He noticed that Lily had an enormous amount of flowers by her bed; many lilies, roses, violets, and the odd larkspur, lupine and hyacinth. Most of them had tags marking which of her many friends has bestowed the get-well gift, except one bouquet of particularly lovely lilies. He also noticed that Severus Snape had a habit of loitering around the hospital wing looking surly, and that Sirius and Marlene often came in together wearing identically devious smirks. He doubted James had noticed any of this, for he was with her virtually whenever he could be, except when she expressly told him to go away. He usually emerged from the hospital wing, however, wearing a glowing smile, which greatly annoyed Snape.

On Friday morning, Lupin was walking to the breakfast table with Peter, who seemed rather unhappy. "How's Lucy?" Lupin asked him lightly as they stood indecisively between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables, at which point Peter gave him such an expression he seemed liable to burst into tears. "What's the matter?" Lupin asked, alarmed.

"I want to be friends again," he said longingly, "with Padfoot and Prongs. But I don't want to give up Lucy, and she's already monopolizing me for the Hogsmeade trip this weekend . . ."

"So just apologize to them, and we'll be the four Marauders again, easy as that," said Lupin. "And maybe Lucy can share you with us on the trip. It would be good us to get to know her better, if she's that important to you, because right now I get the feeling James and Sirius don't like her much."

"But she gets all huffy every time I even bring them up; she's still not over what happened at the Opening Feast," Peter said gloomily. "And she's almost as scary as Mulciber when she's angry with me."

"If she's as bad as Mulciber, you need someone better," Lupin said firmly. "Mulciber is a torturing fiend who should have been expelled at least twice by now."

"Don't remind me!" Peter shuddered. "He gets out of his detentions today, and he's going to be coming after me. I heard in Charms that they're going to come after me next, because they know I'm defenseless without James and Sirius for protection . . . I'm scared without them, Moony."

Lupin resisted with difficulty the urge to demand how Wormtail ever became a Gryffindor, or if this was the main reason he wanted his other friends back. Glancing over at Sirius and James at the table nearby, somehow impressively eating toast, and shining his prefect badge with his thumb, he finally said, "Well, you passed Defense Against the Dark Arts on your OWLs, so you can't be _so_ bad, and I certainly wouldn't let Mulciber do anything, either . . . but if you find my and your own protection inadequate, then you just have to choose who's more terrifying." He hadn't meant to sound so cold, be he couldn't think of another way to say it.

Peter took another regretful glance from James and Sirius to Lucy, who was eying him suspiciously and expectantly. He then look toward the Slytherin table, where Mulciber was looking quite harmless, laughing at something Avery had said, and shaking his head sadly, Peter turned at sat down beside Lucy. Lupin buried his face in his hand.

The day passed as usual for the first couple of classes, but then Lupin had to head off to Ancient Runes and Peter was left to wander back to his common room to pass the classless hour. As it turned out, there were many sixth-years who had an hour off at that time.

Peter also met James and Sirius on his way toward Gryffindor tower, and the three mutually avoided one another's eyes. Eventually, Peter took a pointless detour to avoid their presence, only to be intercepted within three strides by a gleeful-looking Mulciber.

"_Perfect _timing, Pettigrew!" was all he said before raising his wand. "Ready to join sweet little Lily?"

Peter reached uncertainly for his wand only to find another hand already lifting it out of his pocket, whose body was about an inch behind his own, and whose voice, Avery's, was whispering into his ear, "Don't even try it."

"And now," said Mulciber triumphantly, still holding his wand up but not yet deigning to use it, as he seemed to prefer this pre-attack mockery, "we'll finish what we started!"

Peter tried to run, but Avery grabbed him and held him strongly in place. With no way of escape, Peter shouted at the top of his lungs.

James and Sirius were still near enough to where the two corridors intersected that they heard the shout and knew instantly whose it was. They experienced perhaps a split-second hesitation before dashing off in the direction of the shout.

Meanwhile, Avery had clamped his hand over Peter's mouth. "Are you trying to imitate a Howler or Celestina Warbeck? No one who cares can hear your whimpers, so save your breath. It won't take long."

"How does it feel to be abandoned by your friends, Pettigrew?" Mulciber continued mockingly, reveling in the torture of waiting for the pain to happen. "Worse than failing Transfiguration?"

"Worse than the little _preview_ you got last time, eh?" echoed Avery into his ear as Peter whimpered.

"He wouldn't know," said a voice behind them firmly, and they all turned to see James Potter round the corner with Sirius Black, both their wands out.

"You again!" spat Mulciber. "Thought you'd dumped this lump!"

"Gonna be a pair of heroes, are you?" asked Avery.

"That sounds about right," James grinned.

"_Well_," Sirius affected indecision, "_I _really only came to watch my favorite dancer at work again."

"Yes, that's always a perk," James added. "A free duel, a free dance, a free ray of glory in the eyes of Lily Evans – all quite valid reasons to attend this little shindig."

"Shindig," repeated Mulciber. "The only thing _I'll _dig, Potter, is your early grave if you keep up with the pointless heroics. That's the only place they'll lead you."

"So be it," said James fiercely, drawing breath to go on. "I don't care if you –"

But Mulciber had decided to take advantage of James's monologue to aim a nonverbal curse at him.

Sirius shoved him aside just in time and the hit a nearby suit of armor, which promptly exploded. Mulciber swore under his breath while Sirius pointed his wand at him and said, quite calmly, "Tarantellegra."

Avery grew furious and turned again on Peter while Mulciber began to dance, but both James and Sirius stopped him in his tracks, their wands held to his throat.

"Now," said Sirius, grinning widely, "do you _really_ want to turn this into a contest? Because I reckon Mulciber might actually be a better dancer, mate."

Avery, outnumbered three-to-one, one of which had left him lying hexed on the cold stone floor before, knew when to retreat, and ran off alone, leaving Mulciber to stare after him indignantly, still dancing exuberantly on the spot.

"That's right!" called James after him, laughing triumphantly, and he and Sirius slapped a high-five before Sirius sat on the ground and stared as if engrossed in Mulciber's performance.

"I'd give it a little more soul, Mulciber," he mocked as James took his shoulder and beckoned for them to leave. "Give Filch a good show when he comes to investigate the exploding armor. Well, I'll be seeing you!"

They made their way up the stairs of Gryffindor tower, Peter following awkwardly in behind them as they laughed at their victory and the fate of Mulciber and his dancing.

"Guys . . ." he said finally.

"Oh, yes, you," said Sirius, stopping and turning around as he had just noticed him there. "Have something you want to say, _old friend_?" His face was impassive, and he sounded neither cold nor warm.

"I'm . . . sorry," he said, lamely. "I mean . . . I was just . . . and Lucy – she –" He couldn't go on.

"Pete, if you're going to start crying and groveling, I swear we won't be there to save you next time," Sirius said with the faintest of grins.

Peter attempted to get a grip on himself. "And _thank_ _you_," he added, "for – for both times, James, for everything. I don't deserve –"

"Ah, shut up," said James dismissively. "You want to be a Marauder again, just say the word, old friend, and come to Hogsmeadewith _us _this weekend."

"Yes!" Peter spluttered. "I do! I—"

"Right then," Sirius cut him off, grinning and clapping him on the back, "Welcome back, mate!"

"No more betrayal, eh?" James asked, his eyebrows raised. "Going to compromise between us and Lucy? Be a proper Marauder?"

"Yes," Peter promised.

And James grinned, too. "Well, good on ya. I think we need to celebrate this little reunion. Mr. Padfoot, would you like to do the honors?"

"Certainly," said Sirius, dashing off toward the kitchens while James threw a friendly arm around Peter, and the two friends climbed the rest of the stairs toward Gryffindor Tower.


	6. The Boy Who Cried Wolf

**Heya, people! So I figure I've got a some 'splaining to do. First off, this was the fault of another poor English orphan by the name of David Copperfield and my idiotic need to create a complete comic book of that novel for an English project. Then, my computer was being an idiot and wouldn't let me publish this. Then, I went on a vacation/college visit (which, incidentally, recruited me with a Harry Potter reference: as owls are their unofficial mascot, the letter asked "Have you gotten your owl yet?") but when I returned from this transcontinental voyage, it was only to find that the college had rejected me. I spent the rest of the evening wallowing in despair. That's my lame excuse for how late this is coming out. I really am sorry. This chapter is quite a bit longer than usual, and it sort of starts to grow a plot, so I hope that makes up for its lateness. Enjoy!**

Lupin, far from resenting them their private celebration while he was locked in Ancient Runes, was delighted to hear how his friends had reunited without his help, and the four of them visited Lily in the hospital for the last time, as she was to be released the next day. Lily seemed pleased to see them all together again, and seemed all smiles the whole time they were there. Eventually, Lupin quietly suggested to Peter and Sirius that they leave and "let Romeo have a moment" with his bedridden Juliet, which led to a discussion, as they left, about certain tales that both Muggles and wizards knew.

"It's rather common knowledge," Sirius said matter-of-factly, "that Shakespeare was a Squib, and Arthur Conan Doyle was just really good at disguising himself as a Muggle."

"But nothing about Jane Austen?" asked Lupin incredulously, fondling Elizabeth as he carried her up the stairs with him, having brought her to the hospital wing for Lily's enjoyment again.

"_Who_?" asked Sirius as they passed by a corridor and turned his head to greet the person who passed by in it.

"The lady who wrote –" began Lupin, but stopped as he saw Sirius distracted by the pretty Ravenclaw in the corridor. "Oh, never mind. C'mon, Wormtail, there's _two _Romeos to leave alone tonight . . . And speaking of which, have you arranged things with Lucy to come with us tomorrow?"

"Yeah," said Peter hesitantly. "She was a bit huffy about it, but she eventually agreed."

"Those huffy Hufflepuffs," Lupin said as they entered the common room after saying the password to the Fat Lady.

Sirius returned not long later, wearing a devious smirk and refusing to say a word, and James came later still, after Quidditch practice, and accompanied by his grinning team, to ecstatically inform them all that, even better than the fact that Octavia's aim was vastly improving, Lily had actually agreed to meet them in the Three Broomsticks the next day. The four boys went to bed that night all happier than they had been all year, all anticipating the coming dawn and all that would come with it.

Next morning at the breakfast table, two owls swooped in upon the Marauders, who were busy discussing why on earth Mulciber had not been expelled.

"It's because he'd be even more harm in the real world," James was insisting, his mouth full of scrambled egg. "He'd go out and join Voldemort right away. Look, Padfoot, that owl's for you!"

Sirius looked heartily confused at the owl that had landed beside his plate. "For me? Are you sure?" he asked the owl as it stuck out its leg and Lupin removed the letter from the owl in front of him.

The two began to read their respective letters.

Lupin's heart skipped a beat as he read, and then hurled itself to the ground and shattered, as tears welled up in the back of his eyes. Just as he was about to let out a moan of anguish, Sirius let out an elated, gasping laugh.

"What is it?" asked James, grinning.

"Good old Uncle Alphard!" he said. "He left me a whole vault in Gringotts!"

"So you're not broke anymore?" asked Peter as Lupin rubbed his hands across his face.

"Nope! And the first thing I'm buying is a motorcycle," he grinned.

"Yeah, there are a lot of those in Hogsmeade, and Gringotts is _so_ close by," said James sarcastically.

"Side-along apparition, my good friend," Sirius told him. "I'll just find some good-lookin' seventh-year and the rest is history. I'll be rolling back into town before you're done buying your fudge flies."

They all looked so happy, excited, and carefree: Sirius about his motorcycle, James about Lily's agreement, Peter about buying fudge flies in Honeydukes, that Lupin could not bring himself to take it away from them then by acting how he felt, so he tried to hitch a smile back onto his own face.

"But we meet Lily and Lucy at the Three Broomsticks at noon, remember?" James reminded Sirius.

"I won't forget; just _relax_, Prongs," Sirius dismissed, diving into his breakfast with doglike gusto.

"Hey, were'd Moony get to?" James asked, just realizing his absence.

Sirius shrugged. "I'd guess either working overtime on the Lily campaign, wallowing in self-pity that he has no woman to share the occasion with, or showing some poor 'ickle Hufflepuff first-year how to sneak into Honeydukes. One of the three."

James sniggered. "Yeah, I s'pose so . . ." and he busied himself with finishing his breakfast.

By the time they were ready to go into Hogsmeade, James reminding Lily of their appointment while she rolled he eyes and waved, leaving with Mary, Alice, and Marlene, Lupin still had not rejoined them.

"D'you reckon Mulciber –?" began James concernedly to Sirius, as the latter amusedly watched Peter say his frightened temporary goodbye to Lucy.

"If he has, I'm going to start a campaign to get him thrown into Azkaban," Sirius affirmed fiercely. Then, seeming unable to restrain himself, he added, "or forced to join a ballet troupe."

James shook his head. "Padfoot, like the 'serious' thing, that's getting seriously old."

"I can't help myself," Sirius shrugged. "_Tarantellegra_ is my new favorite spell in the world."

The two best friends' eyes met, and they both laughed uncontrollably. "I suppose there is something to the Dancing Death Eaters!" James giggled with glee. "I'll have to see how good Snape is one of these days . . ."

It was then that Lupin finally came into view, flanked by two first-year girls, a dark-haired Slytherin on his right, and a freckly Hufflepuff with curly honey-blond hair on his left. Lupin's face looked reddish and blotchy, but he was wearing a kind smile and hand a hand on each of the two girls' shoulders.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," he said hoarsely.

"_We_ found him in the kitchens," piped up the Hufflepuff, indicating herself and her Slytherin friend, "when Catherine took me there for a cup of tea; she wanted cheer me up because all my third-year friends were leaving for Hogmeade without me."

Lupin gave weak smile of confirmation and said politely, "Might I introduce Clara Higgins" – he indicated the Hufflepuff, then pointing to the Slytherin – "and Catherine Jones?"

But James was looking concernedly into Lupin's eyes while Peter and Sirius shook hands with the two girls. "You alright, mate?"

"Oh yes," Lupin assured him with a sniff. "I was cutting up some onions," he invented wildly, so he decide to expand on the tale. "I've decided I don't do enough for this school, I kind of ignore my prefect duties a lot, so I'm helping out the house-elves, and was giving them a hand making lunch."

Sirius grinned. "I knew it would be something like that," he muttered. "It's the sort of mental thing only _you'd_ come up with. Like with the cat's name."

"But he was done with onions before _we _got there," said the Slytherin, Catherine. "They were probably OK, but the soup he was making looked like rubbish, and smelled like it, too."

"We had to throw it into the Black Lake," added Clara cheerfully. "But it kept spilling on us, so he let us wash up in the prefects' bathroom!"

"But the residual effects of the onions lasted a really long time," added Catherine matter-of-factly. "And then he had to stop and return some Potions book to the library."

"So anyway, that's why I'm late," interrupted Lupin hurriedly, rubbing his face yet again. "Are we ready to go? Meet the girls and get you a motorcycle?"

His three friends grinned and nodded, their excitement for these things cancelling out any lingering worry or suspicion of their friend. Lupin said goodbye to his two new first-year friends, promising to bring them Fizzing Whizzbees. When Catherine moaned that she really just wanted to see the Shrieking Shack, Lupin, with a twisted smile, assured her it wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

Finally, the four friends left for Hogsmeade, and Sirius immediately went off to seek a woman to Apparate him to Gringotts, and then to a Muggle motorcycle dealership. The three remaining spent a half hour in Zonko's; James wrote to his parents and sent them a letter from the Post Office, and just as they were on their way to Honeydukes, a loud roar made them all turn. Sirius, seated on the back of an enormous black motorcycle, his biker boots and black leather jacket reinstalled, a shiny black helmet on his head, and the widest smile they'd ever seen on his face, rolled into their presence, emanating waves of pure cool.

A girl with her face hidden in another helmet sat behind him, her arms around his chest. When the vehicle stopped, she promptly jumped off the back and began pulling the helmet off.

"Thanks, love," Sirius told her tenderly as he, too, dismounted the bike, blocking her from view as he stooped and kissed her hand. They heard her laugh softly as she handed his other helmet back, and then she turned around and dashed away, her long brown hair bouncing behind her, a Ravenclaw tie just whipping out of sight. Sirius turned and faced them, wearing the same grin of supreme arrogance. "Isn't she a beauty?" he asked his friends reverently, motioning in case they had not noticed the tremendous vehicle behind him, or in case any of them thought he might be referring to the girl.

Peter clapped most enthusiastically, Lupin nodded rather dully, and James step forward and reached his hand out to touch the precious machine, but Sirius slapped it away.

"Don't touch it," he said tetchily. "This baby's mine."

"How're you going to get it to fly, though?" Lupin asked softly and curiously.

"Watch and learn, young Remus," he said mysteriously.

"And how're you going to sneak it past Filch into school? I don't think the Invisibility Cloak's big enough," Lupin added.

"You stick-in-the-mud, Moony," said Sirius. "Can't you just let me revel in this moment?"

"Right. Sorry."

Sirius reveled while his friends impatiently waited. Then he said, "So, gents, get on the back there and I'll get you to Honeydukes faster!"

"But you might run into –" Lupin began, but James dragged him onto the back of the bike and they sped down the road, closely missing a pair of Ravenclaws and a trio of excited third-years, and causing their scarves to fly up in their faces. Just as Lupin though they were going to ram into a bewildered-looking Hufflepuff boy at the entrance, Sirius slammed on the breaks, gave a sharp turn, and when the dust cleared, they were and from him on the side, right in front of the shop. The Hufflepuff boy passed out.

Lupin was the first to dismount, panicking about the Hufflepuff, and pulling him to his feet again, trying to wake him up. James and Sirius dismounted afterward, laughing their heads off at the whole matter and at Lupin's reaction. Peter excitedly followed them into the sweetshop. Lupin followed with the Hufflepuff only after he had woken him up and asked if he as alright.

Sadly, Lupin soon realized he didn't have enough money even to buy the two first-years their promised Fizzing Whizzbees. He should have ignored that Insulting Parchment in Zonko's . . . Maybe he could return it for a refund? He stole covertly toward the entrance of the shop, but found Sirius blocking his way.

"Where do you think you're going?" he demanded.

Lupin shamefacedly explained the situation and intentions, and Sirius slapped his forehead. "And what do you think is the _point _of having a best friend who suddenly finds himself loaded? You're goin' _nowhere_, Moony."

And Lupin could do nothing to stop Sirius buying him not only the Fizzing Whizzbees but about four bags of Chocolate frogs, all of James's sweets, and a truly exorbitant amount of Fudge Flies for Peter. Lupin was quite overwhelmed by his generosity. He could never ask anything more of his friends . . . Soon, however, it was time to meet at the Three Broomsticks.

With steaming tankards of butterbeer (also paid for by Sirius) in front of them, Peter and James laughed gleefully as they watched Sirius trying to hit on Madam Rosmerta and brag about his new motorcycle. Lupin brooded, unnoticed, over his drink as they waited for the girls to arrive.

Lily and Lucy entered simultaneously and side-by-side, Lily grinning, Lucy grimacing. James at once stood, kissed Lily's hand, and offered her his seat, for which she half-smiled, half rolled her eyes. Lucy pulled a chair from another table, rammed it between Lupin and Peter, and sat down in it. Lupin noted dully that she had none of the good humor of the other Hufflepuffs he had met today – first-year Clara and the boy who had passed out.

"And how are you, Remus?" asked Lily happily after she too had been supplied with butterbeer out of James's wallet.

"Er – not bad," he said awkwardly, forcing another grin to his face and downing another mouthful of butterbeer. "You?"

"Great!" she replied vibrantly. "It's wonderful to be out of the hospital! And to hear that you lot were all friends again!"

"Yes, and I'm just _wonderful, _too!" Lucy snapped sarcastically, taking a moody sip from her own butterbeer tankard. "I swear I don't even know what I'm doing here . . ."

"You're meeting your future brothers-in-law, in a manner of speaking," said James courteously. "And you're proving your worthiness to be with our friend here."

"So far, you're sort of failing at it, mate," Sirius told her with an inane grin while Peter spluttered helplessly and Lily suppressed a laugh that James indulged in. "Miserably."

"It's OK, though," Lupin added hastily, "we just want to get to know you. Um – do you like Quidditch, Miss Smith?"

"No," she replied. "It's too fast, it gives me a headache. And my house team never wins, anyway."

"Well, I would say I'm sorry about that," said James, "but . . . well, I'm really not."

"And _these_ are your wonderful friends, Peter?" Lucy demanded to him.

Lily laughed. "You sound like me, Lucy," she told the other girl. "I often repeated the same sentiment to Remus here, but James and Sirius do grow on you."

"Hm," said Lucy shortly.

"Say something nice to her," Lupin whispered in Peter's ear.

"Er – Lucy," he said, looking over at her, "your – er – hair – really matches your – er – tie," he finished awkwardly.

"So does yours, Lily!" James added, struggling to free his hand (that was attempting to reach upward and muss up his hair) from Sirius's grip. "Red is a great color on you!"

Lupin buried his face in his hands, having a sudden desire to see Sirius attempting to compliment a Ravenclaw with blue hair, while Sirius himself laughed. Lily looked half-amused; Lucy looked mollified.

"Oh, you're so sweet, Peter," she said, giving him a long wet kiss in the cheek. Sirius made gagging sounds, but Lupin put a hand of his mouth to shut him up.

Lily broke the silence by addressing Sirius and asking, "Is this a test for me, too?"

"Nah," Sirius replied, "We already know and love _you_, Lily."

Lucy sniffed in outrage. She finished the rest of her butterbeer very quickly, said a thoroughly nonverbal goodbye to Peter, and stormed huffily out of the Three Broomsticks.

"Yep, she definitely fails," said Sirius.

"She's just not used to you and your sense of humor, poor girl," Lily said defensively.

"But you _are_, Lily?" James asked with a mischievous smile, using his foot to drag her chair subtly closer to his.

"We'll see," she said noncommittally.

"You keep saying 'We'll see'," James pouted. "Will we ever see?"

She raised her eyebrows. "I'm only here because you were so very sweet when I was in the hospital. If you revert to your former self, I will feel the need to throw you in the Black Lake and cheer on the Giant Squid as it devours your inflated head."

"Oh, come now, Lily," James said, a satisfied smirk on his face, finally freeing his hand from Sirius to rub it through his hair. "You can't really mean that . . ."

Sirius, put off by being unable to restrain James, set his foot on the base of James's chair instead.

"Who would you cheer on in Quidditch, then?" James was asking. "Who would you gaze upon in awe?"

Sirius pushed the chair and James landed in Lily's lap. A spark of rage lit in her emerald eyes and in a split second she had slapped him across the face and stood up, knocking him to the floor. "James Potter, you sick SCUMBAG!" she raged. Packing up her bag, she said curtly, "Good afternoon, Remus," and left the pub in Lucy's wake.

James had not moved from the floor.

"Prongs? You all right?" asked Sirius, once he had stopped laughing.

Still, he didn't move. Sirius stood so that he could see James's face. He was wearing a rather dazed expression.

"James?"

"I love that woman . . ."

Peter and Sirius laughed. Sirius said, "Now that's what I call _self-destructive_, mate," as he helped James to his feet and he sat back down on his chair.

"Oh, don't even think it, Padfoot! She's _mad_ for me. We'll have our quadruple wedding before we're twenty years old – and Lily will be part of it, or my name's not James Potter!"

"I just hope Lucy isn't," Sirius muttered out of Peter's earshot.

"Actually," said Lupin helpfully, "by the way things are looking now, she'll be the _only_ woman getting married there."

"How backwards is _that_?" Sirius demanded. "That _Wormy's _the only one with a steady girlfriend?"

"Oy!" said Peter.

"Lily will be there, too! Mark my words!" James said simply. "And so will a girl for Moony, and a girl for Padfoot. Padfoot! Find yourself a woman!"

"I'm going to marry a Muggle," Sirius said stubbornly.

"Even if Caroline Pettigrew asks you?" James said coyly.

"Caroline Pettigrew lost her chance," replied Sirius proudly, "and Madam Rosmerta is engaged, I just found out, and don't even ask about my little fan club from the common room; most of them are third-years. A Muggle!" he insisted.

"But there's no Muggles around here; it's too boring to wait," James whined. "Not one girl in the whole school, Padfoot? Not some cute little fourth-year? Not that girl who took you to buy your bike?"

Sirius blushed deeply. "Fine," he said. "There's her, but you're not finding out who she is!"

"Come on – a hint, be fair!" James grinned.

"Fine," said Sirius moodily. "You saw her hair – it was brown. She's a friend of Lily's and her initials are M.M. If you're too thick for that, I may have to follow through on Evans's threat."

"Mary Macdonald?" James asked incredulously. "You like _Mary_? My Seeker?"

Sirius shook his head.

"Minerva McGonagall?" asked Peter.

"Marlene McKinnon," declared Lupin.

"Oh, you don't count!" Sirius said irritably, turning back to face Lupin. "You're too observant."

"So you _do_ fancy Marlene!" said James with glee. "Jackpot! You just love your Ravenclaws, don't you? First Caroline, now her."

"I'm still marrying a Muggle," Sirius insisted grumpily.

"Ah," said James in a mocking grave tone, "but that's letting your family influence your choices just as much as being forced to wed a pureblood, Padfoot. You mustn't be totally controlled by your rebellion."

"Cut the psychology," said Sirius wearily. "We've left Moony in peace far too long."

"Yes, indeed," James smiled, turning to face Lupin. "Let's make this easy, then, Moony – you're not leaving this pub until we all know the name of the sweet little girl for whom you're harboring secret fantasies of snogging."

"I really don't think it's a good idea, James – me with – with _girls_," Lupin said awkwardly. "I'd be – dangerous, I could never provide –"

James and Sirius rolled their eyes in perfect unison.

"You really think we'll accept that as a valid argument, Moony?"

"No," he admitted, "but it is one."

"Cut the angst – tell us a name," demanded Sirius.

"There's no one!"

"A name."

"But guys, really –"

"A _name_!"

"Alright," said Lupin, surrendering. "Her name – her name is . . . Octavia Diggle."

"My _Beater_!" James suddenly exclaimed. "You like my Beater? The one I keep raving about, that her aim is improving?"

"The one who wouldn't stop swinging her bat around like a maniac?" Sirius inquired. "Who nearly gave one of the other Beater wannabes a concussion at tryouts? And what got me thinking it'd be some demure little Hufflepuff who spoke hardly more than you did?"

"Dunno," said Lupin, blushing madly. "She was just – nice."

"So Sirius has a thing for Ravenclaws, and _you, _my friend, just like them if they have really cool names? First _Andromeda_, then _Octavia_."

"I _never_ fancied Andromeda!" Lupin protested.

"And her little daughter, my cousin once removed," Sirius interjected, grinning. "You know _her _name, Moony? No?" He paused for dramatic effect and said in a transport of luxury: "_Nymphadora_."

"Stop! Stop! That's just _wrong_! She's three years old!" Lupin snapped.

"Fine, then," James said fairly, "back to _Octavia_."

"To Lily, Lucy, Marlene, and Octavia," Peter declared, raising his half-empty butterbeer tankard, "the luckiest girls alive!"

As they joined in the toast, Sirius, Peter, and James all with genuinely hopeful and carefree smiles, Lupin sincerely wished he could be so happy – sincerely wished that the letter bearing the news that had crushed his heart so utterly, could have arrived a day later, that the owl had gotten lost, and flown slower, so that he could enjoy this day with his friends before black shadow depression settled upon him. He was determined to let _them_ have it, however, and tried his best not to be overcome once again by the grief the letter had sown in him.

He would tell them, perhaps, if he had the strength, that night, for he had learned long ago not to try and conceal unpleasant secrets from his three great friends; they took it as a lack of trust. Even if they would be happier without the truth, they would only be happy knowing he had confided in them. And so with a sigh, and rubbing his face a few more times, he returned to the conversation at hand, which had shifted dramatically from girls to Sirius's strange obsession with crossword puzzles; he had allegedly done the one in every single _Daily Prophet_ since he had arrived at Hogwarts.

Lupin endured in their merriment for the remainder of the Hogsmeade trip, (wherein Sirius was obliged to Disapparate with Marlene and his new motorcycle and leave it in a secret cache to wait until he thought of a way to smuggle it into Hogwarts) and all through dinner (though sometimes he imagined that James's eyes lingered on him in his less convincing moments) and a long spell in the common room, watching Sirius serenade his unlucky young fan club and James shout apologies and explanations up the girls' staircase to an unresponsive Lily. As Octavia Diggle passed by him, he turned deliberately away from her. The despair of what the letter had said weighed heavily on him, and he was only recalled to his senses from a spiral of depression when a put out James informed him that he looked like Nicholas Sky after the first day of Quidditch practice.

"Do I?" he asked, his voice strained. "Well, sorry about that. I'm just tired, I guess." And he slipped upstairs to the dormitory without another word.

James, who was entirely unconvinced, immediately gathered Peter and Sirius and followed Lupin upstairs to inquire further into the matter. They found him sitting very still upon his bed, Elizabeth in his lap, and he looked up when they entered, his face unsurprised by their coming. He had not expected James to believe him, but merely preferred that if this admission elicited any emotion, that it not be made in public. However, he waited for them to address the issue, but they did not. Indeed, Peter settled down to happily munch Fudge Flies and Sirius went at the newest _Daily Prophet _crossword.

"I'm going to be gone one day next week," Lupin said finally, in an utterly unwavering voice. "The night before the full moon. But I should be back in time for that, and for the Quidditch match the next day."

"OK," James said. "Any particular reason?"

"My mother's ill," he replied immediately, his voice wavering ever so slightly this time, "so I'm going to visit her."

"Moony, you used that excuse four times in first and second year," Sirius told him quietly. "How thick do you think we are?"

"It's the truth," said Lupin.

"Remus, do you still not trust us?" James demanded.

"I swear it's true!"

"_Why _don't you trust us?"

"Why don't you trust _me_?" Lupin snapped. But, still meeting disbelief on all their faces, he suddenly laughed. "It's like –" he said, pausing for another chuckle, burying his face in hands. "That story! _The Boy –" _He laughed all the harder, shaking his bed, and then rising to his feet. "_The Boy Who Cried_ –" He his face was hidden, and his laugh might have been a sob as he dashed past them out of the dormitory. "—_Wolf_."


	7. The Truth

**So, this is chapter seven. Probably the angstiest/sappiest chapter ever. Sorry 'bout that. I still don't own Harry Potter, and I'm writing this because I'm obsessed with it at the moment. If you think these pre-story boldface introductions are a waste of time, please tell me. Anyways, tons more action will go down after this chapter. I promise. In fact, I solemnly swear. And there might be a bit more romance. I dunno. I like Sirius and Marlene, I just need to give her more personality. I've decided she's the 'wildest' among Lily's friends. And Octavia - what d'you all think of Octavia? She's probably a Mary Sue, but I just wanted to give poor Lupin a little romance while Tonks was busy being three. I'm rambling again. I should shut up and let you get on with this angsty chapter. Please review, tell me what you like and don't like and stuff. Enjoy!**

Alone, in the remotest corner of Hogwarts, Lupin wept. His tears slid down his cheeks so quickly and copiously that his front was soaked in minutes, and he had added significantly to the river flowing by his feet. It was a small underground tributary to the lake that flowed through this secret passage. It was quite easy to cross, and beyond it was a narrower corridor that led into the basement of Dervish and Banges. He and his friends had discovered this passage on their third voyage under the full moon . . .

"So I'm going to take a wild guess that you weren't really chopping onions this morning."

Lupin jumped, whirled around at the sound of Sirius's voice. His three friends stood there, Sirius with a self-satisfied expression, Peter looking somewhat scared, but James's face with nothing but sympathy.

"H-how did you find me?" Lupin asked hoarsely.

Sirius grinned and held up the Marauders' Map. "Turns out, it wasn't so hard to figure out how to have it show more people. Now we're _all_ on it, Moony. _Now_ we can always find each other."

There was a pause. "So your mother's ill," Sirius went on. "You weren't lying." He gave a very affected cough. "I'm ill, too. I don't see you bursting into tears again."

"How did you -?" Lupin began again, wiping his face noisily on his sleeve.

"Lily Evans," James interjected.

"Who at present has resumed," Sirius interjected into James's interjection, "due to some ingenious machinations of my own, her former position on the subject of James Potter, also known as hating his guts."

"Yeah, thanks for that, by the way," James replied scathingly.

"Oh, it was my pleasure," Sirius grinned.

"Anyways," James went on, "We had to ask _her_, the first Muggle-born we could think of, what _The Boy Who Cried Wolf _was about. She wouldn't even talk to us until we said it was for you, and she just gave us this book she borrowed from a friend in Muggle Studies and said, 'Educate yourselves.'" He briefly flashed the book.

"We asked Peter first, since he's in Muggle Studies with you," Sirius interjected. "But he said he never pays attention and you do half his work, so he had no clue."

Again, Lupin said nothing.

"We put it together," Sirius said softly. "The moral of the story is not to lie too much, or people won't believe the truth. So what you said must have been the truth. Ergo, your mother is ill."

"Remus, is this why you've been so sensitive about her?" James went on. "And about Muggles in general? Why you went ballistic on Mulciber for implying she deserved to die?"

"You were very adamant in saying 'My mother doesn't deserve to die!'" Sirius remembered.

"Is it because you think – you think she's _going_ to die?" James finished gently.

"Not _think_," Lupin corrected falteringly. "_Know_." He once again was overcome by grief, and broke down in fresh sobs. James immediately rushed forward and hugged him, quite literally offering his shoulder to cry on and they sunk to the ground, Peter and Sirius uncertainly kneeling beside them.

When Lupin could bear to speak again, he elaborated. "The letter," he breathed, "was my father's absolute confirmation that if she did not receive the cure, she would be rotting in the churchyard before another fortnight passed us by."

"Such a pity it had to be _your_ mother and not mine!" Sirius muttered.

"But – there's a cure?" James said, cheerfully pouncing on the word. "You just said –a cure, Remus! Just get her the cure, and she'll be right as rain!"

To his surprise, however, this only made another stream of tears glide down Lupin's cheeks. "That's the worst part, Prongs," he said softly. "There _is _a cure, but there's no way she'll get it."

"Why not?" demanded James.

"_It's not for sale to Muggles_," Lupin said coldly, his voice shivering with venomous rage mingled in with his sadness.

"_What_?" demanded Sirius.

"It's very rare, it's very expensive, it's very hard to make," Lupin said, "but in the face of my mother's death, I could have shelved my pride and begged you for the money, James, as our family could never afford it. But the only way to get it – through some ridiculous Ministry department, with all this paperwork – simply said that it was so valuable, they weren't going to _waste_ it on Muggles."

"That is so wrong!" blurted out James and Sirius in unison, quite disgusted. "The head of that department must be Imperiused or something!"

"Did you think to try – cheating them?" Sirius asked, once he could speak again. "Saying it was for someone else, a wizard, or -?"

"There are very thorough investigations by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement," Lupin went on gloomily. "And Dad told me if Crouch saw anything fishy, he was liable to chuck the whole family in Azkaban without a trial or anything, on suspicion of being a Death Eater. Though what a Death Eater would want with a _cure_, I cannot fathom."

He drew a resigned breath, and mopped his face again. "So it wasn't soup that I and those first-years chucked in the lake this morning. I had checked out _Moste Potente Potions _in the hope that I could brew the stuff myself. But Potions was always my worst subject; there's no _way_ I could make it, given a whole year to try . . ." Lupin hopelessly buried his face in his hands again. When he dared to look up, he saw true sympathy and compassion resonating from the faces of his three friends.

"Don't lose hope," James said shortly. There was a soft noise of a door creaking in the distance.

"James, this isn't like a Quidditch match, where you just have to do your best, and try harder, and you'll win," Lupin said harshly.

"Why _not_?" demanded James. "_Everything_ can be reduced to a Quidditch match, Moony – and I haven't lost a Quidditch match since second year! So with me – with _that_ at your side, you can fail at nothing!"

"Makes one wonder how you always fail with Evans . . ." Sirius put in under his breath. "But James is right. We're Marauders. We can do anything."

But Lupin was shaking his head. "She's past saving . . ."

"We're going to save her," Sirius insisted stubbornly.

"We're going to get that potion," James went on assuredly.

"We'll do it by whatever means necessary, and we, your friends, the unstoppable Marauders, will help you to cure your mother, whether you like it or not!" finished Peter.

There was a pause. "Well said, Pete," said Sirius unexpectedly.

"But how -?" began Lupin.

"It's elementary, my dear Moony," James said. "Like the answer to everything, the answer to this is –"

But he was stopped short a gasp from Peter. Filch had just burst into their presence.

"Peter," Sirius asked pleasantly with no pretense of having noticed Filch, "did you forget to close the passage door when we came in?"

Peter groaned and looked abysmally sheepish.

"Thought so."

"First order of business," James said ruefully, "is to add Filch that little Map of ours." It was an hour later; the four boys had been led by Filch and forced to wait silently while the calamity of students discovering secret passages was discussed very seriously amongst the staff, and then they were placed in very unpleasant detentions – James and Peter in one, Sirius and Lupin in another, for the rest of the night. James was speaking through the two-way mirror to Sirius and Lupin on the other end. "Oh, and possibly Evans, too."

"What, so you can stalk her more easily?" Sirius demanded, not deigning to respond to Professor Sprout's demand to put his back into chopping up the tough, slimy, spore-filled mushrooms, nor her warning not to inhale the spores. Lupin, too, was so focused on what James had to say that he did not hear any of Professor Sprout's words.

"I suppose that's one way to put it," James replied, as he and Peter suddenly jumped back in the mirror to avoid a jet of flame that spurted at them. Sirius and Lupin could not fathom what they must be doing for their detention. "But anyways, as I was saying before Filch so _rudely _interrupted, was my brilliant but obvious scheme: like the answer to everything, the answer to this problem, Moony, is Lily Evans."

"Evans?"

"Use your head! She's in NEWT Potions and she likes you! Her parents are Muggles, too, and if you explain the situation, there's no _way _she'd turn down making that potion for you!" James exclaimed.

"That is _brilliant_!" exclaimed Lupin. "You're brilliant, James!"

"Of course I am," James replied with a smirk. "Make sure Evans knows that before you're done talking to her, will you?"

Lupin saluted. "Yes, sir," he said enthusiastically before returning to the slimy, spore-spurting mushrooms and letting James and Sirius have their own conversation, which was largely about adding Marlene McKinnon to the map as well.

Lupin had no opportunity to speak to Lily that night, because he had inhaled a few too many spores from the mushrooms and passed out right when he was about to address her in the common room that night, and his friends, laughing, had dragged him up to their dormitory. The following morning, he hastily asked her if there was anyplace they could meet to talk alone, and the only place she could think of was the front of the prefects' bathroom, where the sinks were, before it split into the boys' and girls' sides.

Lily found him waiting for her there during break time. "If this has anything to do with trying to get me to forgive James Potter, you can just forget it, Remus!" she told him warningly.

"No," he assured her swiftly, but then tilted his head in indecision, "Well, that's not what it's . . . what it's _all _about."

"Fair enough," Lily replied. "What else is it about, then?"

"I hear you're a very good potion-brewer," he replied. "One of the best in the school."

Lily blushed. "I wouldn't say that."

"But you're _pretty_ good."

"I suppose. What of it?"

"Well you see," Lupin faltered. "I know . . . I know a person who's ill, who needs a very specific potion, one that, due to some ridiculous extenuating circumstances, they cannot get otherwise. So I was just wondering if . . . if you could possibly make it for them."

"Well, it depends," Lily replied. "What potion is it?"

Lupin showed her the page he had copied out of _Moste Potente Potions_.

"That," said Lily, squinting at it, "looks," she looked back up at him, shaking her head, "impossible."

His last hope dashed, Lupin held back tears again.

"What's the matter?" demanded Lily, holding him back as he tried to spin around and hide his face from her.

"Er – nothing," he said. "I was just – er, chopping some onions."

"Uh _huh_," said Lily sarcastically. "And Voldemort is my bestie, and James Potter is the most modest person I know, and I'm secretly in love with Mulciber, and - Oo! Oo! My sister has _never_ been jealous of my magic, and you're the best liar _ever_!"

"My friends believed me," Lupin said slowly.

Lily snorted, but she was now holding Lupin's hand in hers. "_Boys_. They _would_."

"They told me we're the very best idiots," Lupin told her with a weak smile.

"Well, I don't know about best, but they've got the idiot part spot-on." She paused. "Remus, are _you_ the person that's ill? I mean, you do look sick a lot."

"No," Lupin replied, "I only wish I were." He turned to go. He added, so quietly Lily could not hear, "It would be much less of a tragedy.

"Well, then, who is?" asked Lily.

"It's not important."

"Why don't you tell me?" demanded Lily, catching his shoulder and turning him back around. "You're being very silly, trying to bear it alone. Why don't you just put away this stupid 'I am lone wolf' front you've adopted –" (here Lupin laughed) "—and let me find a way to help? Because you're _not_ alone, Remus," she added, gripping his hand still tighter. "You've got your little Marauder posse on one side, and me on the other!"

Lupin could not speak for a moment.

"Oh," Lily added anticlimactically, "and don't bother lying, either, because _I _was lying when I said you were the best liar ever."

"Why I won't just tell you, Lily," said Lupin slowly, "is because I'm afraid I would cry if I tried to."

"Well, so what? Do you _know_ how much crying I deal with after Mulciber attacked Mary last year? And with Alice, after Frank graduated? Crying is not shameful to girls, Remus."

Lupin gave another weak smile. "The person that's ill," he said heavily, "is my mother. Because she's a Muggle, she can't get the potion from the Ministry, and she's going to die without it."

Lupin stared quickly up at a mirror and attempted to control his voice. Lily looked shocked, but said nothing, stared compassionately into his face and gripped his hand still tighter.

"Once," he said with difficulty, "when I was about eight, I was – I was quite ill, too. I had to go to St. Mungo's, and I was scared, and in pain, and I thought I would die, but my mother was there sitting beside me, holding my hand and telling me I'd be OK. I asked her to read to me, because I'd always loved books, and it would take my mind off things, but the only thing she had on her was _Pride and Prejudice_, so she read that to me, and I focused on that, and she kept on telling me I would be alright, whenever my mind left Elizabeth's plight. But you see, I can't even do that for her, Lily. Because it would be a lie, and as we've just established, I'm a horrible liar." His voice broke, and he fell silent, and spent a moment in mopping his face.

"And I would never have told _that _to James and Sirius," Lupin laughed airily. "Just a _mite_ too sappy for most gents."

"You ought to find a girlfriend, then," said Lily matter-of-factly, "and no, thanks all the same and no offense, but I'm not volunteering myself."

"And I wouldn't want you to," Lupin replied, blushing madly, "because James –"

"_James_! You spend all this time trying to get me to like James, why don't you try to get someone to like you? You're nice enough for it."

"Oh, will people just give my love life a rest?" demanded Lupin.

"Fine," Lily smiled, "then back to this potion business. _I _might not be able to make this potion for your mother, but I know someone who can."

"Who?" Lupin asked eagerly.

"Well, the _who_ is the problem, Remus. He'd never make the potion for you, and definitely not for a Muggle. He _might_ make it for me, but I'd feel dreadful taking advantage of that now we're no longer friends."

"You mean . . . ?" began Lupin.

"Yes," she replied. "The only person in the school capable of making that potion is Severus Snape."

"Oh," Lupin replied with a dull sarcasm, "_Brilliant_."


	8. The BestLaid Plans

**Alright! HI! I think I've got some 'splaining to do . . . some apologizing, some begging and groveling at the feet of my excellent and admirable fans, for making you wait this long for this chapter. Yes indeedy! Well, my excuse is this: I stopped being obsessed with Harry Potter. I still love Harry Potter, and probably we come obsessed with it again later, but my life always goes in phases of intense obsession that slowly fade away and reemerge at random intervals. And I'm sorry! I realize that's no excuse to leave my dear audience hanging, and I hope you'll all forgive me! Just consider that long wait like the break in between seasons of your favorite TV show. (The season break of "Castle" is absolutely killing me!) But yeah. The Marauders are back, and if I dont' publish faster now, you have my complete permission to be a FLAMING TROLL! On that note, this Chapter is mostly fluff and exposition, even after I promised action! But good things come to those who wait, so . . . I don't own Harry Potter, and ENJOY!**

"But what I really want to know, Sirius," said Marlene, "is where you got that book!" She was pointed to the Muggle folk tale book Sirius had tucked under his arm. They were sitting in some of the back shelves in the library, hidden from view of most people who would possibly be interested. Marlene had come to get a book for Arithmancy, and Sirius, who after adding her to the map, soon located her and followed, had come prepared. He had promptly scooped her off the ladder she'd been climbing and carried her to the darkened back shelves.

"Well, as a matter of fact," Sirius invented wildly, distractedly Summoning a chair over to them and setting her down in it, "I picked the pocket of one of those Muggles at the motorcycle dealership."

"That's a lie," said Marlene shrewdly, crossing her arms. "That book is mine. I leant it to Lily because she was feeling nostalgic for some old Muggle stories. But why do _you_ have it?"

"Research," he said simply with a mysterious smile, handing her the book. He then removed his black leather jacket and draped it over her shoulders. "Now just wait here, love, and I'll get you that other one." He dashed over to the ladder he had just pulled her from, and seized the book she had been getting, ran back to her, and handed it over with an eloquent bow and a kiss on her hand. "This the one?"

Marlene grinned deviously, pulling Sirius's coat onto her arms. "Did you _really_ just come here to be a gent and get my books?"

"_Well_," said Sirius coyly, taking her chin in his hand and leaning inward, "I can't be a gent for nothing – I was hoping for a bit of a reward . . ."

"Padfoot! PADFOOT!"

James burst into view just in time to stop them from kissing.

"What's the matter, Prongs?" Sirius asked, a little bit annoyed.

James was grinning from ear to ear, and brandishing the Marauder's Map. "She's forgiven me, Padfoot! Moony told her what happened and she's forgiven me! Lily Evans says she doesn't hate me – _again_! So you're cleared of all charges. Though I'm not sure what she thinks of _you_ now."

"Ha! Like I care." Sirius turned back to Marlene, but James had not moved, so he turned back to face him. "Did you find me on the Map and run all this way just to tell me this, Prongs? Because if you're done . . ."

"I'm not," said James, still smirking. "I've called a Marauder meeting, so you'd better come back to the common room."

"Now?" Sirius asked, shifting with his eyes to Marlene, who had raised her eyebrows but said nothing.

"Yes, now," affirmed James, his grin widening, "and if you don't come, you're as bad as Wormy was."

Sirius immediately stood up, kissed Marlene's cheek, and said, "Sorry, love – duty calls." And he followed James out of the library. "_Perfect _timing, Prongs," he added sarcastically as they trooped through the great hall toward the stairs that led to Gryffindor Tower. "Couldn't you tell I was with her on the Map?"

"Payback," James replied quietly, with an evil smile.

"_Oh_, I hate you, Prongs!"

"So where are you planning on spending Christmas, eh?"

"I hate you _more_!"

"Don't lie."

"OK. I don't hate you."

"Good."

They had made it back to the common room. Peter and Lupin were sitting in chairs in a distant corner, awaiting them. Sirius and James slid into to others that were sitting nearby. "Good evening, gentlemen," said James in a posh accent. "I trust you are all acquainted with the difficulties facing the honorable Mr. Moony, and we are assembled here fabricate a plan to resolve them."

Sirius rolled his eyes, but he was grinning. James went on. "It is therefore prudent that Mr. Moony should elaborate on the assistance or advice he has received from Miss Evans. Mr. Moony?"

"She says only Snape could manage that potion," said Lupin gloomily. "So she's gone to one of those Slug Club party things Padfoot's brother always goes to, to see if she can convince Slughorn to convince Snape to make it in class, or something like that."

"Slughorn can't make it himself?" asked Sirius curiously.

"Lily reckons he'd be scared to do anything to resist the Ministry directly," said Lupin, a little bitterly. "So she's just going to suggest to Slughorn that he tell Snape making that potion would be a good challenge, a challenge worthy of his skill."

"Yeah, but even if Snape _makes _it, he's never going to give it to us," said Peter.

"But maybe if he knew what it was for –" Lupin began hopefully.

"He'd be even less willing," Sirius finished darkly. "He's just like the rest of them, Moony, just like my family. He hates Muggles and Muggle-borns. Remember when he called Evans 'Mudblood' last year?"

"I suppose so," Lupin said, remembering the occasion very vividly, with a swell of shame.

"The only option," said Sirius with a grin, "is to steal it."

"Oh, _glory_," said Lupin miserably, burying his face in his hands.

"Come on, it'll be fun!" Sirius added unhelpfully, his grin widening maniacally.

"And so," interjected James, in the same haughty voice, "we have concluded on that component of the predicament. We shall wait until Miss Evans informs us that Mr. Snivellus has indeed concocted said potion, at which point we shall conceal ourselves beneath my cloak, follow the closest Slytherin into their common room, and steal the potion. Agreed, gentlemen?"

"Agreed!" said Sirius and Peter enthusiastically.

"Mr. Wormtail and Mr. Padfoot have agreed. What say you, Mr. Moony?" asked James.

"A-agreed," he echoed, shining his prefect badge guiltily with his thumb again.

"Excellent!" said James. "The only other order of business would be the manner in which to transport the potion from this school to the residence of Mr. Moony, where his mother resides. As none of us are old enough to Apparate as of yet, I would suggest flying."

"Flying!" Sirius suddenly exclaimed.

"Yes, flying. The problem is I doubt my Silver Arrow could hold us all up, so –"

"I'm not going on a broomstick!" Sirius declared.

"Wha – why? The school brooms aren't _that _–"

"I'm going on my motorcycle!"

"The one that can't fly that's in some cache in a Muggle town fifty miles away?" James asked suspiciously, no longer bothering with his presumptuous speech.

"Mere technicality."

"Well, we could always see if Hagrid's got something we can ride," suggested Lupin, "maybe a Pegasus, or a hippogriff. You never know what's in that forest, and he seems to be on good terms with Professor Kettleburn, so maybe . . ."

"Well, a hippogriff doesn't sound so bad, but I still fancy figuring out a way to use the bike. I mean, how awesome is it to ride a flying motorcycle over the forest on a rescue mission?" Sirius demanded.

"Well, I would remind you that _looking awesome _isn't really the point," said Lupin pointedly.

"_Or_," suggested Peter, "we could just ask a seventh year, like that Marlene girl Sirius hangs around with, to walk outside the grounds with Moony and Apparate him there."

Both James and Sirius looked incredulous. "Now where's the team spirit in that?" demanded James.

"Well, I'm not sure it's about team spirit, either," said Peter, glancing at Lupin, who looked torn.

"No," said Sirius firmly. "I'm not letting Marlene and Moony go anywhere alone! Besides, this is a Marauder thing. We're not getting Marlene involved."

"But it's perfectly OK to get Lily involved?" Lupin asked curiously.

"Will people quit finding flaws in my logic?" Sirius asked irritably. "That wasn't up to me. That was Prongs's idea. If he wants to get _his _woman involved . . ."

"I am _not_ his woman," said a voice, as Lily came into view, striding up at speed to stand behind James's chair, grinning broadly. James blushed madly and resolutely succeeded in holding his own hand in place and not touching his hair.

"Did you-?" asked Lupin hopefully, jumping to his feet.

Lily nodded, glowing. "Slughorn says he'll encourage Snape to make it next lesson."

"Oh, thank you so much, Lily!"

Lily nodded her acknowledgement of his thanks and turned to go, but turned back. "Oh, and by the way, James . . ."

James looked hopefully up at her, and to his delight she was still smiling, though it was halfway between a beam and a smirk. She gestured down to where his hand was still resisting reaching up to his hair. "That's the first time you've not had help not touching your hair. I believe congratulations are in order." Her grin having solidified into a smirk, Lily departed.

James waited perhaps three seconds before he clenched his fists victoriously, mouthing, "SCORE!" He then cleared his throat and resumed his air of affected dignity. "In any event, gentlemen, back to the business of transportation . . . what do you see as the solution, Mr. Padfoot?"

"I'll find away to smuggle the bike in," Sirius said dismissively. "I was going to do it anyway, and this will just speed up the process. I'm clever enough to figure out a way. Just leave it all to me!"

"So Prongs takes his broom, you take your motorcycle –" began Peter.

"It has a sidecar," said Sirius with a grin. "Moony can ride in there, and you can just be a rat and ride on Prongs's head while he flies the broom, Peter."

"Excellent," said James. "If that will be all, gentlemen, we shall conclude this meeting. You are all dismissed, and I trust none of you will breathe a word of this to anyone who's not a Marauder." His voice immediately lost its haughty accent.

"Well, if that's all, _Mr._ Prongs, I'll be going back to the library," said Sirius grumpily, "to salvage a ruined moment, and to _ponder _the various methods of smuggling. Good night!" He left.

"So Moony, I never got to thank you for setting Evans straight about what happened in the pub. So thanks," said James cordially.

Lupin blushed. "It was my pleasure."

"Since you're always working so hard to get Evans to like me," James went on, leaning in conspiratorially, "what do you say if I give you a little leg-up with that Octavia Diggle?"

"No," Lupin said immediately. "James, don't!"

"Why not?" demanded James as they both glanced over at the girl in question, who was laughing uproariously at something a nearby first-year had said.

"Because," Lupin began with difficulty, "because you do everything for me, James, you all do – with money, and my mother, and my – my _furriness_. So you needn't bother with girls."

James and Lupin beamed at each other. Peter dug into his pocket and ate another fudge fly.

"So Moony," said Sirius excitedly, "do you even fully _appreciate _how brilliant I am?"

"Of course I do, Padfoot. I could appreciate anyone's brilliance right now, even Snape's," Lupin replied.

It was break time the next day; Lupin had been pacing along the corridor, giddily anticipating the word from Lily about whether Snape had made the potion. He was so stressed he was almost hyperventilating. Sirius watched him from a sitting position on a nearby staircase that led to some unknown teacher's office with a combination of pity and amusement.

"Do you want to know _why _I'm so brilliant, Moony?" Sirius asked.

"Wouldn't mind," Lupin replied breathlessly.

"I know how to smuggle my motorbike in!" he declared excitedly. Lupin got the feeling he had been waiting impatiently to proclaim this stroke of brilliance ever since he had had it.

"Wonderful," Lupin said airily. "That's – that's really great, Padfoot. Thanks a lot."

Sirius looked mortally affronted. "You don't even want to hear _how _brilliant my plan is?"

"I suspect I'll hear it anyways," Lupin replied, still pacing.

"Ah, you know me too well, mate," Sirius grinned. "Well, you see, do you remember our fifth full moon escapade?"

"Vaguely," said Lupin, straining his eyes as he thought back. "Wasn't that the one where you had to distract Bertha Jorkins from going into the forest where James was holding me back by chasing her until she found Florence and Dirk kissing and got distracted by that?"

"Yes," Sirius confirmed, "but do you remember what else we did? What else we . . . _discovered_?"

"I was in the mind of a violent beast who wanted to assault Bertha Jorkins, Sirius," Lupin said wearily. "If you could cut my poor memory some slack on the details . . .?"

"Fine," said Sirius, "After that, we were in the castle again, because James thought it looked impressive when he jumped the stairs in his stag form, and he wanted to look at the trophy room again . . ." Sirius elaborated.

"Oh, yes," said Lupin, rolling his eyes. "And then we went all the way to the _seventh _floor . . ."

"And do you remember what happened there?" Sirius probed.

"Snape turned up," Lupin remembered. "And we really needed to hide someplace, so we ducked into this room, and there was all this _junk _in it – like dragon eggshells, and banned books, and bloody axes, and illegal potions. It all looked like contraband that had been hidden there. But then when we went to find the room the next day, we couldn't, and when I tried to draw it on the Map, it just sort of faded away, so I concluded it had to be Unplottable." Lupin paused. "Are you saying something in _there_ could help you get the bike here?"

"Very astute, Mr. Moony," said Sirius with an impressed look. "And do you remember me telling you I hated my entire family?" Lupin nodded. "It was a generalization," affirmed Sirius. "Your true love Andromeda was never as terrible as everyone else; she was always my favorite cousin. But she _did _get herself sorted in Slytherin . . ."

"Surely you can't fault her just for that?" Lupin asked plaintively, not yet comprehending how this subject connected to the mission at hand.

"_Fault_ her?" Sirius mocked. "Why, that's the only one advantage of having a Slytherin ancestry! It works just _brilliantly_ with my plan, because _no one _looks twice at a Black – or, a former Black – going into Borgin and Burkes!"

"Borgin and _who_?"

"You never even _heard _of it, have you, you lucky little goody-goody?" Sirius asked. He sighed. "Well, it's this shop in Knockturn Alley, sells all sorts of Dark stuff. There's even a rumor that Voldemort himself used to work there. My parents went there all the time. One time cousin Bella even insisted she wanted to have her birthday party there . . ." Sirius sounded vaguely disgusted.

"And?" Lupin prompted impatiently.

"Vanishing cabinets!" exclaimed Sirius gleefully. "It just so happens that they've got one in that shop that connects to the one in Hogwarts! I've just written to Andromeda, asking her to retrieve my bike and put it in the Borgin and Burkes end, so then we can get it out of the one in the seventh-floor room!"

Lupin was speechless for a full twenty seconds. "That . . ." he said finally, "_is _brilliant, Padfoot!"

"Naturally," agreed Sirius with a self-satisfied smirk.

Lupin gave his friend a weak smile in return before going back to his pacing.

"OK, what's eating you now, mate?" Sirius demanded, slightly annoyed.

"My mother's life is hanging in the balance, at the whim of Severus Snape!" Lupin burst out. "Wouldn't _you_ be a bit stressed?"

"Not a bit!" Sirius returned coolly. "I would be laughing! And hoping Snape didn't know how much I can't stand her, so he'd think it would punish me not to save her."

"Yeah, well," said Lupin.

"You need to blow off steam, then?" Sirius asked. "I've got _hundreds_ of ways! Thousands! Why, the ways are only limited to the imagination of the Marauders!"

"I dunno, Padfoot . . ." Lupin said uncertainly. "I'm not really in the mood . . ."

"Don't be a stick-in-the-mud," Sirius commanded with a manic glint in his eyes, clapping Lupin on the back so hard it forced him to sit down beside Sirius.

"Alright," Lupin surrendered with a resigned sigh, leaning back on the staircase, "what d'you got?"

"Well, you could make sock puppets of snakes and have them all be eaten by a lion . . ."

"What? No! I only have three pairs of socks as it is, and only one without holes in the toes!" Lupin protested. "And anyway, what would be the point of that?"

"I dunno, punishing Slytherin house always calms me down . . ." Sirius shrugged. At Lupin's expression, however, he added, "but of course you're not me. Option number two: go steal James's invisibility cloak, sneak into a random classroom, and if anyone's fallen asleep, draw a Dark Mark on their arm!"

"That could get them expelled!" Lupin protested.

"Then make sure it's someone you don't like," Sirius said simply, yawning luxuriously.

"I don't want to get anyone expelled!" Lupin snapped.

"Not even Mulciber?"

"Something tells me _he _already has a Dark Mark . . ." Lupin said gloomily, sinking lower still onto the ground. Sirius glanced sideways at him and, noticing how upset he still looked, put a hand on his shoulder and demanded, "Dangit, Moony! Why d'you gotta be so bloody pitiful? You leave me no other choice! I declare today – School-Wide Hug a Slytherin Day!"

"Come again?" demanded Lupin. "Did you say – '_Hug _a Slytherin'?_"_

"You heard right, Moony!" declared Sirius, the manic glint burning even brighter in the depths of his eyes. "There's no better way to punish them!"

"Now why would _that_ decrease my stress levels?" asked Lupin.

"Watch and learn, young Moony!" said Sirius cheerfully. "In just a minute, my –" But he stopped talking immediately because Lily evens had just come into view.

"_There_ you are, Remus!" she said impatiently. "I've almost wasted my break looking for you!"

"Miss Evans!" Lupin shot back to his feet. "What – what news about Severus and the – the potion?"

Lily grimaced, and Lupin looked horrified. "Severus said," she began, "he just said . . . he had to work on some other potions, but he _might _try it sometime later this week . . ."

"WHAT?" demanded Lupin, sounding almost comically melodramatic. "You mean I have to wait a whole _week _to find out if my mother will live or _die? _ARE YOU _BLOODY_ KIDDING ME?"

Lily looked apologetic. "I'm sorry, Remus. Just . . . just take a chill pill. See you around." And she left.

The moment she was out of sight, Lupin crumpled to the floor again. "A whole _week _. . ." he said miserably, burying his face in his hands. "It can't take it, Padfoot! I'm going to lose my mind!"

"Oh, you'll find it again," Sirius said dismissively, once he had stopped laughing. "Here, watch!"

He stuck his foot out just as a stuffy-looking Slytherin boy was walking by. The Slytherin fell to the ground and Sirius surged to his feet with a wide grin and helped him up. "Sorry, little brother!" he exclaimed with an air of false repentance. "Didn't see you there!" And then Sirius hugged him. Lupin's jaw dropped.

Regulus pushed his elder brother off of him. "Sirius, what is _wrong _with you?" he spat viciously.

"Nothin's wrong with me!" Sirius exclaimed gleefully. "Brotherly love, man! Get hip to it!" Then Sirius laughed maniacally. Both Lupin and Regulus stared at him. Then Sirius stopped laughing and held up a wand. "Oh, look! I stole your wand!" he said, and bolted away down the corridor.

Lupin could not hold in a tiny snort of laughter. Regulus shook his head. "I swear I am not related to him," he told Lupin before dashing off in pursuit of his brother and his wand.


End file.
